The Departed: Who can you trust when everyone is lying?

The Departed has a title alone that catches a person eye. Who left, why did they leave, where did they go, or does is mean dead and gone? This trailer begins with a gigantic dose of ethos with having a huge named actor, be it Jack Nicholas. He asks the audience watching a question, after making a statement that draws the audience in, making them question even how they would answer.  “…they say you could become cops or criminals. When you are facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?” Not only does this come from the ethos side of things, but what he says uses pathos. Using powerful words such as those, right out of the gate appeals to our emotions and how we are supposed to be against criminals, but what would you do with a gun to your head? As the trailer progresses a number of other huge named actors are introduced; Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlburg, and Alec Baldwin all of which are proposed as to having big roles in the movie, making the ethos appeal much higher. They all seem to be intertwined in a huge pool of lies and deceit. No one seems to be able to tell who is good and who is bad. When you make an audience start to ask questions themselves it draws them in to find out the answers.

 With this high volume of well known male actors, having all mostly been in action based films leads me to believe that, the genre will be action as well, creating the logos. As the trailer nears the end any doubt about the genre is put to rest due to the numerous action scenes shown. This is a great tactic to use to appeal to the male demographic drawing in any male who has ever liked explosions, gunfire, or fistfights. But what was as well portrayed in the trailer is a hint of a love story between Matt Damon and a not as well known actress attempting to use pathos to draw in a female crowd as well. This great use of a drama/love story is going to grab the attention of more viewers making the film more money. Using the logos as well as pathos this time in the same argument, at the very end Jack Nicholas’s character cracks a joke letting us sit back in our chairs after being on the edge the whole time playing with our emotions. Now we sit and wonder where do we connect that dot, is he a bad guy with humor, or is he just a general psychopath? 

After taking a deeper look into the trailer, it is good to take a step back and watch it as a fan of movies. With this you are drawn in by the idea of lying, deceiving, and even cops being traitors to their own kind and criminals being traitors to their own kind. This is a twisted play on pathos causing us not to know what is up or down, and question who we think is good or bad. This trailer makes you think, makes you laugh, makes your jaw drop, and even makes you think this could be real. All reasons I would love to see this movie. This trailer gets a, 3 clipboards out of 3.