CDirected by Scott Cooper Starring Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, and Peter Sarsgaard Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Johnny Depp does his heavy make-up thing in Scott Cooper's Black Mass, a crime drama about Boston's Whitey Bulger. Cooper, with the affecting Crazy Heart and the alienating Out of the Furnace under his belt, is leaning more into the Furnace side here, as Black Mass is competent but cold and mostly unmemorable. Bulger is an intriguing subject only for a person otherwise unfamiliar with how criminals operate in ethnic enclaves and are later represented in cinema.
The Bulgers are Boston fixtures when the film opens in 1975. While relatively law-abiding brother Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch) sits in the state legislature, Depp's Whitey rules a small kingdom, though he's got his sights set on larger territory. His Winter Hill Gang, populated by the likes of Jesse Plemons, W. Earl Brown, and Rory Cochrane, controls the Irish neighborhoods of South Boston, but they're constantly butting up against the Italian Mafia territory. Enter FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), a native son tasked with breaking the Boston Mafia and a childhood acquaintance of the Bulgers. He convinces Whitey to help him take down the Italians, with Whitey providing information on their activities and Connolly steering the FBI away from the Winter Hill Gang's long list of criminal endeavors, up to and including murders. Though their lopsided partnership bears fruit and the years go by, Whitey experiences personal tragedies that numb him to the rest of the world, becoming increasingly dangerous and erratic, while Connolly struggles to hand-wave away all the favors the FBI is doing for Whitey with seemingly little in return.
As cinematic kingpins go, the Whitey Bulger of Black Mass just isn't very interesting. He bumps off informants and traitors, intimidates people, loves his family enough to humanize him a tiny bit, and looks good from a low angle with a gun in his hand and the sun over his shoulder. His isn't a new story, especially when contrasted with Connolly or Billy Bulger, which are far more dramatically compelling. A state official with a large brood of children and a vicious crime boss of an older brother sounds like a novel story, as does an FBI agent who goes way too far in protecting his source out of some disfigured fraternal affection that is never repaid. However, Billy is barely a figure in Black Mass and Connolly's infatuation with Whitey is always taken for granted, never doubted or questioned even when Whitey is threatening Connolly's wife (an underutilized Julianne Nicholson).
Being a film so purely about Whitey, the most fascinating, stranger-than-fiction parts of his life are offhandedly mentioned, like the LSD experiments he did as a prisoner or the serendipity of his winning the lottery and then spreading it around over Southie and further endearing himself to its residents. These are elided for another tense sequence of rat murder in a film that has at least three. Cooper also includes perfunctory scenes of Whitey and his young son, imparting bad lessons but lovingly fawning over him. This is half-hearted stuff, sap without the courage of its convictions, and a decision that further reinforces that Whitey is not the best main character in this story.
Despite the frustrating script, Cooper and his cast know how to at least make the proceedings look and sound professional. Cooper lets scenes breathe with foreboding and tension. Depp isn't just hiding under prosthetics, as he's increasingly wont to do, though the dead tooth and the ghostly contact lenses are doing a lot of work. His Whitey is an enigmatic presence, someone who will probably kill you, unless he doesn't, which might mean he's just toying with his prey. Edgerton's increasingly sweaty and grossly obsequious performance makes his Connolly the worst person in a room full of murderers, and Corey Stoll blasts into the third act as an agent less likely to take Connolly at his word. A brief role for Peter Sarsgaard, playing a drugged-up Florida associate, injects some needed life into the film, even if the whole incident involving him doesn't weigh heavily on the plot.
Black Mass is playing in a familiar sandbox, and its all-star cast isn't enough to elevate the film. By shirking the remarkable aspects of this story and focusing on the overdone ones originated by better writers, Cooper's film doesn't manage to impress, settling only for entertaining moment to moment. I left the film with no greater understanding of much of what happened, beyond a superficial beat-by-beat rehashing of events. I'll hope to get more about Whitey Bulger from the well-received documentary about him. C
As cinematic kingpins go, the Whitey Bulger of Black Mass just isn't very interesting. He bumps off informants and traitors, intimidates people, loves his family enough to humanize him a tiny bit, and looks good from a low angle with a gun in his hand and the sun over his shoulder. His isn't a new story, especially when contrasted with Connolly or Billy Bulger, which are far more dramatically compelling. A state official with a large brood of children and a vicious crime boss of an older brother sounds like a novel story, as does an FBI agent who goes way too far in protecting his source out of some disfigured fraternal affection that is never repaid. However, Billy is barely a figure in Black Mass and Connolly's infatuation with Whitey is always taken for granted, never doubted or questioned even when Whitey is threatening Connolly's wife (an underutilized Julianne Nicholson).
Being a film so purely about Whitey, the most fascinating, stranger-than-fiction parts of his life are offhandedly mentioned, like the LSD experiments he did as a prisoner or the serendipity of his winning the lottery and then spreading it around over Southie and further endearing himself to its residents. These are elided for another tense sequence of rat murder in a film that has at least three. Cooper also includes perfunctory scenes of Whitey and his young son, imparting bad lessons but lovingly fawning over him. This is half-hearted stuff, sap without the courage of its convictions, and a decision that further reinforces that Whitey is not the best main character in this story.
Despite the frustrating script, Cooper and his cast know how to at least make the proceedings look and sound professional. Cooper lets scenes breathe with foreboding and tension. Depp isn't just hiding under prosthetics, as he's increasingly wont to do, though the dead tooth and the ghostly contact lenses are doing a lot of work. His Whitey is an enigmatic presence, someone who will probably kill you, unless he doesn't, which might mean he's just toying with his prey. Edgerton's increasingly sweaty and grossly obsequious performance makes his Connolly the worst person in a room full of murderers, and Corey Stoll blasts into the third act as an agent less likely to take Connolly at his word. A brief role for Peter Sarsgaard, playing a drugged-up Florida associate, injects some needed life into the film, even if the whole incident involving him doesn't weigh heavily on the plot.
Black Mass is playing in a familiar sandbox, and its all-star cast isn't enough to elevate the film. By shirking the remarkable aspects of this story and focusing on the overdone ones originated by better writers, Cooper's film doesn't manage to impress, settling only for entertaining moment to moment. I left the film with no greater understanding of much of what happened, beyond a superficial beat-by-beat rehashing of events. I'll hope to get more about Whitey Bulger from the well-received documentary about him. C
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