Black Mass
Starring Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton
Directed by Scott Cooper
The sordid saga of James ‘Whitey’ Bulger is the gritty stuff of true crime legend. Sadly, Scott Cooper’s bland biopic barely scratches the surface in its examination of the legendary Irish mobster’s ‘unholy alliance’ with the FBI in order to take down the Italian mafia in ‘70s South Boston.
For starters, Depp finally gets to play something other than a bumbling art dealer, cantankerous pirate or zany Mad Hatter and yet, buried beneath layers of makeup, thinning hair, and practically translucent contact lenses, his dramatic portrayal of Bulger gets largely overshadowed by his distracting physical appearance.
Granted, Depp is certainly up to the task of crafting a maniacal villain but he can never transcend the role to make us forget we’re just watching the actor play dress-up. To make matters worse, the rest of the formidable cast, which includes Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, and Dakota Johnson, all try to out-act one another with a parade of shaky Boston accents.
Yet, the biggest problem with Black Mass is that it’s bland and often rather tedious. We follow Bulger on his criminal exploits, all the while receiving immunity from the FBI, and watch him spiral out of control like so many gangsters before him. Barely anything is learned about most of the characters’ histories or motivations.
The film is far too procedural to create any kind of lasting impression; when such a familiar tale is spun it needs to compel and Black Mass just lumbers on toward a predictable outcome.
