“Black Mass,” a chilling biopic on the infamous Irish-American mobster James “Whitey” Bulger (played by Johnny Depp), tells the story of Bulger’s rise to power in South Boston as an informant for the FBI. While the movie showcases arguably one of Depp’s best performances as an actor, as a stand-alone film, it leaves a little more to be desired.
South Boston native-turned-FBI special agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) has recently returned to Boston. As a past admirer of Bulger, Connolly encourages Bulger to join the FBI in an alliance, hoping the partnership would help both Bulger and Connelly himself. Thus begins a story of deceit, betrayal, and murder.
A certain level of anticipatory energy exists at the beginning of the movie. Each scene with Depp is captivating, and the audience is left wanting to find out more about this strange yet somewhat charismatic man.
Depp plays Bulger convincingly from scene to scene — in one, he is threatening a fellow Winter Hill gang member, and in the next, cracking jokes and endearing himself to members of the community. In yet another, Bulger is killing someone like it’s just part of the job — which to him, it is. One can already see that something isn’t right with Bulger. One FBI agent conveniently mentions in the beginning of the film that Bulger took experimental LSD in prison in exchange for a lesser sentence, thus portraying Bulger as an unstable persona who needs just the tiniest nudge to crash into pure madness.
This nudge comes quickly as tragedy strikes Bulger’s family. In one incredibly tense scene between him and his wife (Dakota Johnson), the audience sees Bulger transition from troubled and merciless to borderline psychotic. The rest of the movie’s plot twists and tragedies only serve to further push Bulger’s character into psychosis, as his killings become increasingly reckless and sadistic.
Unfortunately, this is where the film begins to sour. The performances of Depp, Edgerton and other members of the cast — particularly Rory Cochrane’s haunting portrayal of Stephen Flemmi, Bulger’s right hand man — are certainly worth watching, yet with the main character lost so early to his own madness, there isn’t much left to the plot. The audience can only watch as the movie goes through a steady decline.
“Black Mass” offers up a gruesome look at what it means to truly lose one’s soul and sense of humanity. Unlike other crime dramas which dip into this theme, “Black Mass” grabs it head on and makes it the most realistic part of the movie. While this may not be the ideal entertainment film simply for its lack of a strong, compelling climax and its unredeemed carnage, it is probably one of the most disturbing crime movies of the decade and is definitely worth seeing at least once.
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