It has been years since people have been truly excited for a Johnny Depp Film. The famous actor has had a string of duds leaving audience goers with little confidence in future releases. With his new film based on the exploits of famous Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, it’s easy to understand why one would continue to remain skeptical, especially after the mess known as Public Enemies failed to impress.
Black Mass chronicles the career of notorious Boston criminal James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, a man who became an FBI informant as a means to eliminate the Italian mafia from Boston and take over their territory. The film is told from varying perspective of Bulger’s former Winter Hill Gang henchmen, those that were close to him, confessing to their evil deeds but, more importantly, those of Whitey, the man who would eventually disappear and remain on the FBI’s most wanted list for 12 years.
Scott Cooper, the talented director known for films such as Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace, returns for his third film, one chock full of excellent performances, some cliché storytelling, and, overall, a film that will appease fans of gangster films but one that doesn’t add anything new or exciting to the genre.
Besides being long and having some periods of slow moving downtime, the only aspect of Black Mass that’ll truly captivate audiences are the performances, even if some of the actors had shaky Boston accents. Johnny Depp was absolutely brilliant and you can call this a comeback from him. Sure, he looked weird with those blue/green eyes, but he was magnificently menacing and did a great job portraying one of the most feared gangsters to ever live. The best scene in the film involved him speaking with John Connolly’s wife about sickness that’ll make your hair stand, it’s so chilling.
Other notable performances came from the delusional FBI handler and Bulger friend, John Connolly, played convincingly by Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch as Bulger’s brother Billy and President of the Massachusetts Senate, though he had some accent issues, Julianne Nicholson as Connolly’s wife, and Jesse Plemons, who went through a crazy looking transformation to be Kevin Weeks.
As much as I wanted to love Black Mass, I found that I couldn’t get invested in the story, it was spread out a tad too thin. A lot more of the film seemed to focus on John Connolly and his dealings rather than emphasizing Whitey’s exploits. I’m not saying we don’t get to witness Whitey being evil and doing terrible things, I just felt the pacing, separation of action, and focus on Connolly made the move feel slow and detracted from some of the better elements. Additionally, there isn’t anything in this movie that we haven’t seen from other gangster movies which, understandably, is a tough thing to do nowadays but I was hoping for a little more creativity to help it stand out.
Overall, most people will enjoy Black Mass. It wasn’t the awesome gangster film I was hoping for but it did contain the redemptive performance that I was praying Johnny Depp would give. There are solid performances, a good score, and some excellent evil action, but it just didn’t do much to distance itself from other films in the genre and that, along with the pacing and length, is where it lost its footing for me.
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