Textual Analysis- Peter Otuwehinmi

Textual analysis on the departed.
We are first introduced to our main character (the protagonist) as a child. This is done through an Irish mobster who grooms our protagonist and a few other youths. As the film goes on our protagonist is portrayed as cocky obnoxious and arrogant. We are shown this through one of the scenes at the very beginning in where we see him loose in a game of rugby, and ends up doing insultive hand gestures toward the opposing team in addition to make insultive and abusive comments toward the opposing team. As our protagonist grows up we see him in a police academy which gives us the idea that he is training to be a police officer due to his experience in the mob, although later on in the film our protagonist soon agrees to drop out of the academy to do time in prison because of a “Phony assault charge.” This as we see later on in the film increases his credibility. The audience identifies with the protagonist as he grows up, being groomed by the Irish mobster, as a boy who knows no better as he’s lived a rough life, so he looks up to this mobster as a father figure.

Throughout this film people are not aware of our protagonist’s true identity. This secret would be one of the Irish mob that he was part of when he was younger. This secret puts him in a lot of danger as everybody is now after him to get to the father figure we were introduced to at the beginning of the film. The director builds a sense of suspense that makes the audience find out our protagonist has been found out. This is during the scene where one of the force tells our protagonist that he knows his real identity, but then the camera cuts into a shot wound that this character has endured and later on he dies. This scene here puts the audience on the edge as someone now knows something that they do as well.

The quick editing adds a lot of suspense to this action thriller, and it successfully keeps the audience at the edge of their seats at all time. Moreover the anticipation of our protagonist getting caught is even more nail biting. Moreover the use of dark lights with fire in the background in many scenes adds to the action within the scene, in addition to it represents the danger and implications of getting caught.

Unlike most thrillers this thriller contains a lot close ups on the characters, and other shots to establish our characters. I think the director does this to help the Audience relate to the character, as he is growing up within the film, almost like a life juney.