Oliver Queenan (The Departed)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may not meet the general notability guideline or one of the following specific guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for redirection, merge or ultimately deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion.
This article has been tagged since February 2008.

Oliver Queenan
The Departed character
Created by	William Monahan
Portrayed by	Martin Sheen
IMDb profile

Oliver Queenan is a major character in the 2006 Academy Award-winning drama film The Departed. Created by screenwriter William Monahan, he is portrayed by Martin Sheen. His name is a slight reference to Oliver Queen.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Overview

Queenan is the calm and collected head of the undercover unit of the Massachusetts State Police. Some of his subordinates include the humorous Captain George Ellerby and the hot-tempered Sergeant Dignam. His main objective is to bring down the criminal empire of South Boston crime lord Frank Costello. It is implied (through a brief mutual encounter) that Queenan and Costello knew one another in their youth when they speak with familiarity about one another's families. A young recruit from the police academy named Billy Costigan is selected because of his family's long-time involvement in the Boston underworld. Queenan is the only confidante Costigan can confide in, aside from his social worker Madolyn and the unsympathetic Dignam. He is also trying in vain to apprehend a suspected police mole in the department, whom he does not realize is Sergeant Colin Sullivan.

What Costigan does not know is that the Federal Bureau of Investigations have Costello working for them as an informant. About nearly 6 months into the operation, Costigan confesses to him that he cannot go on living like someone else. Feeling responsible for the younger man's collapsing physical and mental condition, Queenan assures him that it will take two weeks to get him out of there at the most. Upon being told that the mole in the police department has to be someone with all the information, it is strongly implied that Queenan realizes it is Sullivan. Meanwhile, Sullivan, whom Costello ordered to find the rat in his crew, has Queenan trailed in an attempt to find out who the operative is. This leads to Costello's crew tracking them down at an abandoned apartment complex. Costigan manages to evacuate down the fire escape due to Queenan staying behind to distract them. They easily overpower him and throw him out of a window to his death. With his death, Costigan is left with nobody in the world except Dignam that can help him out of his predicament.

The death of Queenan also causes a character change in Sullivan, who feels guilt-ridden for having inadvertently caused his demise. Dignam kills him at the end of the movie in revenge for it.

[edit] Casting

Before Martin Sheen was cast in the role, Robert De Niro was offered the part by director and friend Martin Scorsese. De Niro turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with his film The Good Shepherd. Later, he admitted that "I wanted to. I wish I could've been able to, but I was preparing The Good Shepherd so much that I couldn't take the time to. I was trying to figure a way to do it while I was preparing. It just didn't seem possible."^[1] Mel Gibson was also offered the part, as well as that of Captain Ellerby, but he declined in favour of shooting Apocalypto. Scottish Actor Peter Mullan and Irish actor Gerard McSorley were also offered the part.