We all know that Jack Nicholson's character in Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" shares his name with real life mobster Frank Costello, "The Prime Minister of the Underworld"; but those who know about the real Costello also know that the carachter and the real life mafioso don't have anything else in common.

Scorsese's Frank Costello seems to have been inspired by FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List's member James J. "Whitey" Bulger, the head of Boston's irish mob during the 1970's and 80's; not a straight up copy - actually, Scorsese seems to have flipped personalities - Bulger is known to be a sofisticated guy who loves reading, loves animals and considers those who drink heavily to be mentally weak, while "The Departed"'s Costello is a vulgar street guy, involved with hookers and posibly drugs and booze.

But the most important thing about the fictional Frank Costello is that he runs the Irish Mob in Boston via his status as an FBI Informant, double crossing agents and his associates as well and being able to keep his own illegal enterprises with the blessing of an FBI agent, just like "Whitey" Bulger.

I know "The Departed" is a remake from a Hong Kong film (or whatever the fuck) but I guess Scorsese fine tuned the plot, the characters and the locatiosns for his own purposes and it seems to me that his Frank Costello was inpired by James "Whitey" Bulger, what you think? I wonder why couldn't he just come up with another name; although sounding very italian, Costello is indeed an irish name but it brings up a lot of stuff since it's the same name of a famous old time gangster.

"Internal Affairs" was the older movie.

The fictional Costello's FBI links is definitely based on Whitey Bulger. He played the FBI in real life like a violin.

Higgins wrote a book based on it called, End of Day. Not one of his better books but not bad. Black Mass is the book to read about regarding Bulger and the FBI. It was written by (i think) a pair of Boston Globe journalists.

You're right, though ... that was Bulger (as regards the FBI link) in the fictional Costello.

Except, of course, Whitey walked away ...

And they want the FBI to find Ossama Bin Laden? That's pretty funny.

Just remembered another book based on Bulger. A GREAT book. Boyos, by Rick Marinick. Once a Boston statie (cop), Rick did 10.5 years for an armored car robbery. Got his degrees (BA & MFA) in prison and came out, worked the Big Dig and wrote a Boyos. Marty Fallon (in the book) is based on a Bulger-like character (somebody running the show in Boston while working with the FBI to give up the Italian New England Mob.