Capello plays The Departed: From drama to high farce

Fabio Capello’s managerial career best makes sense to me when I think about that Martin Scorsese’s crime thriller, The Departed.  The Departed is one of my favourite films, and Capello’s career is one of the most impressive that any gaffer could want.  But, in my view, they both share the same flaw: they are mostly magnificent until their closing stages.  (I apologise here for spoiling the plot for anyone who has not yet seen the film: if you haven’t seen it, and you wish to, please skip the next paragraph.)

The Departed, a remake of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, follows the mortal struggle of two Boston policeman with close links to the underworld: Matt Damon plays a corrupt cop who is a mole for the Mafia in the city police department, while Leonardo DiCaprio is his polar opposite, a righteous and brilliant sleuth with family ties to all manner of unpleasant gangsters.

And I think it’s great.  Right until that scene when Damon shoots DiCaprio coming out of that lift, and then it all goes wrong.  DiCaprio’s relationship with his therapist feels hastily bolted on, Matt Damon’s death feels like a hamfisted twist of karma, and don’t get me started on the rat running along the balcony just before the closing credits, as some sort of rabid metaphor for corruption.

The Departed, in my view, is at least a nine-out-of-ten until its final fifteen minutes, but the narrative in the closing scenes is so unsatisfactory that it drops to a seven-and-a-half.  Capello’s comments on Italian radio yesterday, where he disagreed strongly with the FA’s removal of the England captaincy from John Terry, signal that he is determined to write some disappointing plot twists of his own.

At times, the England job has made Capello look utterly mortal – not always, it must be said, through his own fault.  The same man who led AC Milan to that extraordinary 4-0 win over Barcelona in the 1994 European Cup final also presided over one of the most tactically inept England performances of modern times.  On that occasion, he was failed by the inability of his players to retain their composure.  On this occasion, the lack of vision is unfortunately of his making.

In stating that John Terry should still be England captain and that, furthermore, he still regards Terry as his captain, Capello has simultaneously and publicly undermined his employer and Terry’s immediate successor.  That is a remarkable and regrettable feat; and Capello’s legacy, as he prepares to depart into retirement, deserves better.  Sadly, though, this Italian’s great drama is at risk of sinking into farce.