Black Mass Review

Since the early days of film audiences have sat gawping at the characters on screen, characters who quite often have been gangsters, the gangster film has almost as old as cinema itself which means when a new one comes along its hard to avoid imitation.

                Black Mass tells the true story of the rise of the Boston based crime boss James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, a man whose notoriety stemmed from the fact that his rise to power was in some part assisted by his partnership with  the FBI via his childhood friend agent John Connolly. In exchange for tipping off the FBI about other Boston based crime families, the FBI would turn a blind eye to the nefarious actions of Bulger, of which there were many.

                This film is definitely not original, which isn’t a fair criticism of the film given that it’s all based on true events, Bulger himself was inspiration for Jack Nicholson’s character in Scorsese’s Boston based crime film The Departed. There are a large amount of moments that take place that recalls to you some other gangster film you’ve seen before, some running dangerously close to rehashing an old idea, such as a dinner scene where the tone and conversation feel almost identical to the “funny how” scene in Goodfellas. It would be difficult to make this film feel original in any sense, so it’s impressive that the film on the whole is very effective.

                Scott Cooper is an interesting director, similar to this film, his last film Out of the furnace felt like it was imitating a lot of other films, but similar to that Black Mass doesn’t do anything lazily and manages to be a solid film. Cooper’s greatest talent lies in getting great performances out of his actors, this is the man who directed Jeff Bridges to a best actor Oscar, and the performances in this film are also pretty great. Female roles are very fleeting here, but in the moments of screen time that Dakota Johnson and Julianne Nicholson do get they give it their best. There are a whole handful of supporting players that include the likes of Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane, Kevin Bacon, Adam Scott and David Harbour who all give solid if a little unremarkable performances. When the film begins to stray into a side plot to do with Hai Lai it could easily have strayed into boredom, fortunately this point coincides with the introduction of Peter Sarsgaard as a cocaine addled nutcase which gives the film a much needed boost. The casting of Benedict Cumberbatch as Whitey Bulger’s senator brother seems a curious one, and though his performance isn’t terrible by any means he feels out of place in the film, which is perhaps the concept that Cooper was going for, the clean cut senator amongst a collection of criminals, but this feels incredibly distracting in amongst the rest of the characters. The best performance of the film by a big margin is that of Joel Edgerton as FBI agent John Connolly, it’s a fascinating character, someone who works in law enforcement who is in league with the criminals who he grew up with, a bond that couldn’t be broken. It remains ambiguous as to whether Connolly was genuinely a force for good trying to work outside the rules, or if he was ultimately the biggest criminal of them all abusing his position of power. Edgerton is fantastic in the role, his increasing swagger and physical changes as the film goes on are subtle but effecting, as his wife notes at one point “you walk differently now”. Edgerton has had a great year and he’s surely got to be a dead cert for the supporting actor nomination.

                Finally there is the leading man. Heralded as a return to form for Johnny Depp Black Mass sees him in a far more serious role than we’ve been treated to in recent years. The performance is good, but somewhat similar to the problem with Di Caprio in J Edgar is that his performance is hidden under all the make-up that has been plastered on him an attempt to make him look more like Bulger. It’s very alienating when in every scene where Depp is giving a great, if a little one note, performance, your entire focus is being drawn to the fact that he’s wearing blue contacts and his skin is about 50 shades brighter. Despite his notoriety I don’t think people would have cared that Depp doesn’t look like Bulger as long as he gave a good performance. Watching the film I recalled a fondness for the vastly underrated Public Enemies a film in which Depp looked nothing like John Dillinger but I believed in his performance all the same.

                Ultimately this is a solid, if unoriginal gangster film. Led by strong performances I imagine it might garner some steam going into awards season, and that’s in spite of all the people they’ll have pissed off with their attempts at a Boston accent. (Low 4 Stars)