Ethical Issues In The Movie The Departed

909 Words4 Pages

In the movie The Departed starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Billy who plays as an undercover state trooper, Matt Damon playing Colin Sullivan who is a detective in the Special Investigations Unit who is working for Frank Costello played by Jack Nicholson. The movie presents numerous ethical and moral issues such as murdering people and dealing drugs.

One of the first issues that presented in the movie is Billy who comes from a background of criminals. However, Billy wants to be a state trooper and disowns his family but he has to prove his moral conviction to the people in the undercover side of the police department. In order to prove this is agrees to go undercover into Costello’s gang and become and informant. Billy is a state trooper and …show more content…

This eventually leads him to having a meeting with Madolyn who is the shrink for the police department. Madolyn is dating at the time Colin Sullivan who is the mole for Costello in the police department. Eventually, Madolyn and Billy have a thing together while she is dating Colin. Madolyn violates her codes of conduct as a professional health counselor when getting into a personal relationship with a patient. It is expected that doctors do not date patients who are going through mental health related issues. It creates a bad environment because a doctor is supposed to be impartial and having a personal relationship means they can use their leverage as a doctor against the other person. Madolyn realizes that she can no longer see Billy as well as date Colin and decides to stop seeing …show more content…

The two state troopers are both sent in to be an informant and share the link of living a double life. They also share the similarity in Madolyn whom they both want to form a serious relationship with. Billy has little option but to see it to the end for Costello and Colin has no option of getting away from Costello unless he dies. Therefore, both have their free will constrained to a degree. This as you see towards the end of the movie creates mental suffering for each police officer. This movie is a good lesson of the dilemmas that not only police officers face but normal people who feel as though they can’t have their own

Open Document