Retrospective: Worst Picture/Best Picture – ‘Basic Instinct 2’ and ‘The Departed’ (2006)
“By the way, Stone left five minutes before the movie began and people in the theater began throwing things at the screen during a particularly outrageous and insulting scene inside an orgy-type nightclub.” – DutchMan82, IMDb.com
“Scorsese tops the list of American directors because, even when he fails, he strives passionately to make movies that matter. The Departed, a defiantly uncompromised vision of a society rotting from the inside, is one of his best.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Dropkicks and Ice Picks
I used to love LA, but after the last entry in this series I don’t think I’m going back to Cali. Instead, we’re going on a couple trips as far from the west coast as we can. Thankfully we’re not talking about that last Best Picture winner that was about racists and drug dealers and cops and criminals. This time around we’re talking about racists and drug dealers and cops and criminals, but it’s a Martin Scorsese film so we’re required to like it. And thankfully we’re not talking about the last Worst Picture winner anymore that was about a sex obsessed woman who can’t keep her legs from spreading. This time around we’re talking about a sex obsessed woman who can’t keep her legs from spreading, but here the lead isn’t married to the director, so it shouldn’t be too bad. Pack your bags and get ready for some fun because we’re shipping off to Boston and I hear London calling. So let’s look at this matchup of Spy vs Thigh.
Directed by Martin Scorsese, this epic crime drama stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a young man who had a troubled youth because his father was involved in a gang. Now all grown up, he works as a spy to take down the villainous leader of the current gang. Unfortunately, Gangs of New York went 0 for 10 at the Oscars, so Marty and Leo figured they’d try it again a couple years later and move the story to Boston. So this time around, Leonardo DiCaprio stars in The Departed as a young man who had a troubled youth because his father was involved in a gang. Now all grown up, he works as a spy to take down the villainous leader of the current gang. At the start of the film, rookie cop in training Billy Costigan (DiCaprio) graduates from the Boston Police Academy and is given his first assignment. Selected by Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Staff Sergeant Dignam, Costigan is to go undercover as a thug who will become a member of mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Oscar presenter Nicholson was so pissed off that he had to announce that Crash won Best Picture the year before, he decided to do something about it and star in the next year’s Best Picture winner. Because he’s had experience encountering youngsters impersonating other people, like doctors for instance, Queenan chose Costigan because he had that familiar face of a conman. Thinking their scheme will work, unbeknownst to these clever cops, they’re unaware that along with Costigan, fellow graduate Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is also a new member of the force, and he happens to actually be a member of Costello’s gang. And even more unbeknownst, Queenan and Dignam also made Sullivan a detective. Try to keep up, we’re only about 10 minutes into the movie and there’s already more characters and subplots than Crash.
In this erotic thriller, a psychiatrist takes on a horny patient who has a mysterious past and is a possible murderer. Soon the doctor has passionate sex with the femme fatale and he must find out whether she is indeed this city’s latest serial killer. But I’ve already written about the Razzie winner Color of Night. Instead, I’ll be talking about the latest chapter in the Basic Instinct saga. In this erotic thriller, a psychiatrist takes on a horny patient who has a mysterious past and is a possible murderer. Soon the doctor has passionate sex with the femme fatale and he must find out whether she is indeed this city’s latest serial killer. While The Departed opens with a song from The Rollings Stones, Basic Instinct 2 does one better and has an actual rolling Stone. Our naughty novelist Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) is speeding down a London street late at night with a doped up soccer star. While he’s acting all loopy, our horny speed demon coaches the player to head for her goal. Just as he scores and she cheers louder than a World Cup announcer, the car flies off the road and into the Thames. She managed to swim to safety, but the poor player didn’t make it out, it was all too quick and now he’s dead. Though she made it out fine, because of that little thing about driving 110 mph, crashing, and someone dying, she’s arrested and brought in for questioning. During the interview detective Roy Washburn (David Thewlis) asked Catherine if the passenger was alive when she was driving and she said of course, he did some nice handy work on her, and after all, ghosts can’t do it.
While Catherine is waiting for trial, our hero Costigan already got sent to prison for a stretch so he could look like a bad guy. As he had planned, he catches the eye of Costello’s gang, and realizing that this boy’s life has been rough, they decide to let him be a part of their crew. And as all of this is taking place, back at the police station Captain Ellerby tells the team about their latest assignment. I’m sure at first the casting department had a ton of options for who to get to play Ellerby but then they said fuck it, just get Alec Baldwin to do his Always Be Closing character. The Captain tells them that crooked Costello’s new operation involves selling expensive micro processors to the Chinese. Don’t worry if you don’t remember this part, I’m sure even die hard Scorsese fans don’t even remember what the hell they were dealing in. Anyway, they want Sullivan and the fellow investigators to track Costello and catch him in the act of selling the word processors or whatever they are. Though Sullivan figures he’s got it covered being Costello’s inside man and all, he’s a bit worried because he finds out that the Captain has an undercover man that’s part of Costello’s team and he won’t reveal who it is. So now along with having to purposely botch up the investigation to help out Costello, Sullivan’s also gotta find out the darn identity of Costigan.
As the crooked cop Sullivan does his detective work in his apartment with the view of a building that’s got a dome that looks like a golden boob, our crooked Catherine heads to a building downtown that looks like a giant dildo. She’s been ordered to be evaluated by psychiatrist Dr. Glass (David Morrissey) to see if she’s eligible for bail leading up to her murder trial and whether she’s a danger to herself or others. Unlike your typical shrink who’s office is in a cozy room with shelves of books and a leather bed for patients to lie on and spill their guts, Glass’s office looks to be an airplane hangar that’s part of the penis penthouse. He must be good at his job. Just like every line of dialogue in the film she delivers, the moment Catherine walks into his office hangar she spouts off euphemisms for everyone to get down and dirty with her. At the start of the evaluation, she lights a cigarette, but lucky for Dr. Glass she’s sitting in front of his desk so he doesn’t get a complete evaluation of her legs. After analyzing the sultry suspect, Glass concludes that Catherine is indeed a danger to herself, and thus she is denied bail. However, before trial begins it is discovered that one of the prosecutor’s main witnesses committed perjury, and thus the case was dismissed and Catherine is released. Now a free woman, the first thing she does is return to Glass’s boner building and ask if he’ll take her on as a new patient. Reluctant at first, he agrees, probably because he’s in the mood for some sexy sessions.
Not to be outdone by the randy writer doing some jerkin in the Gherkin with her new shrink Dr. Glass, Costigan too has been ordered to see a therapist. Because he’s been having such a stressful and dangerous time working with the mobsters, his sessions with Dr. Madolyn Madden (Vera Farmiga) aren’t exactly calm and collective, despite the fact that she works in a cozy little office and not a giant arena like some other psychiatrists. His first meeting doesn’t go off to a great start, shouting and showing off his signature squinting for the majority of the session. I guess his ranting about murder, thoughts of suicide, and a demand for pills paid off because he managed to get a date out of it with the Doc. Catherine Tramell should take notes. Little does Costigan know, the lady he hit on has actually been going out with the ratty detective Sullivan. Unlike Costigan, Sullivan wasn’t her patient, he just passed her in the elevator at the station and flirted with her the old fashioned way. And when he found out that she’s the office therapist, he realized she’s hotter than the hairy Dr. Robin Williams, so he jumped at the chance to hook up with her. At first he had some trouble, but finally he told her “I’d stab someone in the heart with an ice pick if it gets me dinner with you.” Once again, Catherine Tramell should take notes.
While the Doc in Boston is having some fun, the Doc in Britain hasn’t been as lucky. Along with his conniving Catherine, Glass has been frequently followed by reporter Adam Tower. You see, it seems a few years ago our good Glass got into some trouble when a patient of his snapped and killed his pregnant girlfriend. Glass caught some heat because he didn’t break his doctor client privilege with the psycho which could have prevented the murder if he had. And now with Catherine in the news, Glass is pissed that Tower is bringing up that old story, especially since it could also threaten an upcoming job offer he’s gotten. Or maybe he’s pissed at Tower because the reporter has been having sex with his ex-wife for a year, you never know. Anyway, to cool his temper, Glass went to a party of shrinks with his colleague Dr. Milena Gardosh (Charlotte Rampling). But wouldn’t you know it, Catherine crashed the party, arriving with Dr. Gerst, a renowned psychiatrist who is also the most stereotypical shrink ever put on screen. If you only just learned what a psychiatrist was, and you were shown a picture of Dr. Gerst and Dr. Freud, you’d immediately point to Gerst as the shrink. While Catherine charms all of Glass’s friends, he decides to get the hell out of there, but on the way out he grabs a hot psychiatrist to take home to his apartment and have sex with. And man, the sex between those therapists was so rough, you’d think Sean Connery was reading a Jeopardy category. I guess Glass has been taking notes from Catherine.
While the shrinks in London are off screwing each other, back in Boston the spies are screwing each other as well. Thanks to Costigan’s info to the cops, Sullivan is caught off guard that the Micro Machine deal (or whatever they are) is about to go down, so he has to think quickly to alert boss Costello. As everything is getting set up, with his phone still in his pocket, Sullivan manages to text Costello about the cop ambush, thus making this film forever stuck in the mid aughts because he’d never be able to text like that with a smartphone. Despite Costigan’s efforts to blow the operation, it’s a success and the Micro Nintendo’s were sold for a hefty sum of money, really pissing off Captain Ellerby. To celebrate, Costello has sex with a few prostitutes and while they party with a ton of cocaine he tells them “don’t move until you’re numb”. He must have been taking notes from Catherine after her party with the doped up soccer player.
Just as Costello’s sex party is heating up, Dr. Glass’s sex party was interrupted. To his disappointment, his ex-wife called him mid shagging because she went to visit the pesky journalist Adam Tower only to find him naked and strangled in bed. Well, I guess Glass doesn’t need to worry about that new article anymore. Soon after Glass arrives to the scene to comfort ex-wife Denise, the police show up, including nosy Detective Washburn. First he doesn’t believe that Catherine is innocent of the soccer players death, and now thanks to some sloppy wandering by Glass at Tower’s place, he also starts to suspect that the doc may have been involved in this death. Though coincidentally, Glass starts to suspect Catherine may have been involved in the death because he found her lighter on the ground. To cool down after that murder scene, Glass decides to have another session with Catherine. But thanks to her talks of masturbation and fantasizing about him, things start to heat up. She also mentions that along with ex-wife Denise, she too was having sex with the dead Adam Tower. Though she didn’t admit to killing him, as if she was auditioning for the Cell Block Tango, she spreads her legs wide open and sits down in the chair, telling Glass that Tower had it coming.
While Washburn is doing some detective work on the shrink, Sullivan is doing some detective work on the fink. After the hiccup with the Chinese, he figures it’s time he finds out who the rat is, so he asks everyone in the gang to write down their bank accounts and social security numbers. Well, this spooks Costigan a bit, so to cool down he decides to have another session with Dr. Madden. Actually, he decides to go to her house and things start to heat up. Meanwhile, Sullivan goes to a porno theater so he can see things start to heat up. He’s there to meet Costello and pick up the accounts and numbers from the group. As a gag, our joker greets Sullivan with a dildo, and while it’s not as impressive as Glass’s 40 story shaft back in London, Dirk Diggler would still approve.
As Boston detectives search for their rat, it seems as though Detective Washburn has found a rat of his own. Even though Tower is dead, that annoying issue with Glass’s former patient is still going around. Washburn tells Glass that his ex-wife Denise said he had lied about not knowing that the guy would commit murder. Well, that pisses off Glass, so he goes to see the dirty Denise. After confronting her about it, they get in an argument and she runs off. He chases after her, but after losing sight of her for about 15 seconds she ends up getting murdered. Glass just can’t catch a break. Once again, Detective Washburn shows up and has another talk with suspect Glass. But as usual, he sort of brushes him off because as far as Washburn is concerned, Catherine is the Prime Suspect, probably because right where Denise was murdered there was a giant poster of a woman’s ass, so Catherine must have been there. Besides, Glass is a saint compared to the last doctor Washburn encountered, he turned animals into humans and had little pink dwarfs as best friends. I mean, Washburn could handle turning an animal into a human, he’s familiar with that, but when someone wears buckets as hats, that crosses the line.
Well, in the span of about twenty minutes we’ve already had two pretty important deaths in London, but back in Boston it’s been nearly two hours and the only deaths we’ve had been some random gangsters and some unlucky delivery men. Marty needs to pick up his game. After realizing he was nearly outed for being the rat at the station, Sullivan comes up with a plan. Since Queenan is pretty much the only one who knows who Costello’s rat is, Sullivan decides to have him followed in hopes to catch him talking to his inside man. And lucky for Sullivan, that’s about to happen. Queenan takes a break from seeing Bobby Kennedy getting assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in order to talk to Costigan. They meet on the rooftop of an abandoned building, but unfortunately they realize they’ve been tailed by Costello’s rat. Costigan escapes and makes it out unscathed, but sadly the same can’t be said for Queenan. The bad guys push him off the rooftop and Queenan has a badlanding.
Taking a break from seeing Bobby Kennedy getting assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel, Catherine invites Glass over to her place. Compared to his hangar of an office, Catherine’s apartment is the size of a castle. I guess being a murderous mystery writer has its benefits. Finally alone with her outside of the office, he can forget the formal Q&A and get down to the T&A. This last temptation of Glass finally put him over the edge so he pounced on Catherine and the two got it on. Catherine was so rough, it was more violent than her last fight with Catwoman.
While things are getting lusty in London, things are getting bitter in Boston. Because it resulted in Queenan’s death and, as Costigan knows, he’s familiar with people getting pushed off of roofs, Dignam was not impressed by Sullivan’s funky hunch so he threatened to beat the shit out of him. And even more surprised by Queenan’s death is Costigan, because soon after he gets a call from the dead guy. It turns out it’s Sullivan calling, because he figured out this would be the way to catch the rat, by calling the number on Queenan’s phone. Well he’s got Costigan’s number, how do you like them apples?
Why does Boston have to have all the crooked cops? Back in London, after his night of dirty love, Glass went to Catherine’s kitchen and found some mysterious vials in her fridge. Letting himself out, he takes them to Washburn to get analyzed. But while the detective is doing that, Glass does some detective work of his own and finds an old article that our dearly departed Tower wrote. It turns out Washburn has a history of planting evidence and witness intimidation. Hey, maybe there’s a sliver of a chance Catherine’s not as diabolique as we thought.
With all that cockney corruption, let’s get back to the traitorous townies. Along with kind of finding out who Costello’s rat is, Sullivan also found Costello to be a bit of a rat himself. It turns out our head honcho is also an FBI informant. Well, that doesn’t sit too well with the sleazy Sullivan, so he intends to do something about it. Costello bring Costigan and the rest of the team to go make a big drug deal, but Sullivan decides to double cross his boss and so he goes wit the cops to catch the crook in the act. At the docks, there’s a massive shootout and pretty much all of the Costello clan are taken out. Costigan says “catch me if you can” and he manages to flee unscathed, but Costello gets shot and tries to run away. However, Sullivan finds him, and because he was pissed that Costello got to be an Informant before he got to, he shoots him. While it wasn’t a silver bullet, it still did the trick and he dies. I guess Sullivan just couldn’t handle the truth.
Meanwhile, Glass goes back to Catherine’s castle to find some truth as well. Out on her balcony, she strips naked and hops into her hot tub. Thankfully her legs are underwater, so Glass only has to focus on her breasts as he interrogates her. Talking about all the murders and why the victims had to die, Catherine acts like she’s the killer in a slasher film and it’s the final act where she reveals why she did it. However, she talks like a Ghostface killer reveal the entire film, so you can’t tell whether she’s telling the truth or not. After constantly telling her not to smoke while at his sessions, maybe her smoking in the Jacuzzi finally put him over the edge, so Glass jumps in the tub and strangles her. Thankfully he stops before he kills her, and Catherine doesn’t seem too upset about what just happened. I guess it’s easy not to get your panties in a bunch when you’re never wearing any.
While Catherine managed to escape death, the same couldn’t be said for Costello. Back at the station everyone greets Sullivan as a hero and Costigan is in his office, there to introduce himself as the spy. Trying not to show his excitement for finally finding out who it is, Sullivan thanks him for his services and leaves for a moment. Alone in the office, Costigan finds Costello’s folder of all the accounts of his gang, and he realizes that Sullivan is the rat. He rushes out of there and heads to Madolyn’s place because she’s the only one he trusts. He leaves the proof that he’s a good cop and that Sullivan’s the rat. Well isn’t that a coincidence that she’s been banging both of them? While Sullivan’s in the shower, she listens to the recording and finds out the truth about her deceitful detective. Realizing she knows the truth, he tries to explain himself to her but she would hear none of it. I guess when it comes to trying to hide his true identity he’s not a very talented Mr. Sullivan.
As all the drama is happening at Sullivan’s apartment, things aren’t going to well at Glass’s place either. After his erotic eruption toward Catherine, he ran back home to cool down. However, realizing his apartment is basically a closet compared to Catherine’s castle, he tears apart a lot of stuff in a fit of rage. Too bad nobody’s around anymore to provide him with some anger management. He decides to read some of Catherine’s latest novel and suspects that the next victim will be his friend Dr. Gardosh. He rushes over to her place to save her and calls up Washburn to meet him there. However, our cunning Catherine is already at Gardosh’s place. Doing more of her Ghostface talk, Glass once again snaps and while trying to attack her, he accidentally hits Gardosh knocking her out. After that brief interruption, Catherine continues her confession, revealing that Washburn was actually the one who killed that wife of Glass’s psycho patient, just so he could have the guy arrested and put away. Maybe she said that just to piss off Glass, and I guess it worked, because just then Washburn shows up and Glass shoots him. While it wasn’t a silver bullet, it still did the trick and he dies. Now pointing the gun at the awful author, he’s about to shoot her but the other cops show up and arrest him before he could get off a shot. I guess he’s just slow with the draw, we all know that if Catherine had it instead she would’ve killed him very quickly.
After that exciting altercation, Boston has some high expectations. Feeling powerful and pissed, Costigan calls up Sullivan and tells him to meet him where Queenan died. The devious detective shows up and is captured immediately by the courageous Costigan. With one tattle after another, Costigan finally had enough of rat Sullivan sabotaging everything she he handcuffs him, telling him he’s gonna expose him. Thinking he’s the king of the world, Costigan goes down the elevator with his rat, but he lets his guard down for a moment and bam, he gets shot in the head. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t look up. And sadly, Sharon is too busy having nasty ass sex with random people in London, she couldn’t be there to say goodbye to him as he’s dying. It turns out it was another rat in the department who killed Costigan, but, to save his own ass, Sullivan kills that guy so he can make up a story that that guy was the only rat and that he was indeed a good Will Costigan. With everyone dead and almost having his true identity revealed, Sullivan decides he should ease up and be a low-key rat. Unfortunately, that only works out for a little bit, because back at his cozy apartment, Sullivan is greeted by a pissed off Dignam. Before he has a chance to say much of anything, Sullivan is shot in the head, leaving Dignam as the lone survivor, giving him a sweet sensation.
Let’s leave that mess in Massachusetts and go back to that escalation in England. Some time has passed and Catherine visits Glass who is the latest resident at an exquisite mental institution that gives Catherine’s castle a run for its money. Sedated and resting comfortably in a wheelchair, he listens to Catherine talk as she gives her 20th Ghostface reveal speech. This time around, she talks about her latest novel, and that it’s about a bunch of murders happening and the reader don’t know if it’s the blonde novelist or the crooked cop doing it. It turns out neither of them did it, that the entire time it was the slippery shrink who killed everyone, and once getting caught he pretends to be crazy to avoid jail time. But we all know that’s silly, who would’ve heard of someone doing something like that? Anyway, she finishes her story, yet again, not knowing whether she’s told the truth or not. She gives him a wet kiss then walks away. Poor doctor, he had such a promising career ahead of him, and all it took was a curvy Stone to break the Glass.
So, how do these two compare? Both films are about mistaken identities, corruption, murder, and doctors having sex with their patients. Plus the music in both movies is pretty repetitive. In one movie we’ve got the same punk rock song played about three or four times, and in the other movie we’ve got the same ominous brief score for two hours straight. And sure, they’re both very violent films, but one one of them kept the majority of the violence in the sack. In The Departed people are shooting guns so much and killing everyone in sight, whereas in Basic Instinct 2 the lead fires so much he eventually starts shooting blanks. Granted, maybe if Glass had stuck to his typical English patients and avoided that American Beauty he wouldn’t have been involved in all that dirty love, but hey, at least he learned some new sex position and how to use a belt for things other than holding pants up. And hey, at least The Departed isn’t as violent as it could’ve been, Sullivan never found out about his girlfriend Madolyn’s infernal affair with Costigan, so that was one less death. But in the end, both movies have too much death and despair and they’re just downers. After watching these I need something upbeat. I can’t totally recall what they are, but I’m hoping the next entry in this series is about a bunch or killing and villains or slutty women who go around having sex with a bunch of people.
- Retrospective: Worst Picture/Best Picture – ‘Basic Instinct 2’ and ‘The Departed’ (2006) - December 15, 2025
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- Retrospective: Worst Picture/Best Picture – ‘Catwoman’ and ‘Million Dollar Baby’ (2004) - July 22, 2024
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