Black Mass

Johnny Depp Attempts Reinvention as Whitey Bulger

Black Mass

Director: Scott Cooper

Stars: Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch, Joel Edgerton

Black Mass, which tells the story of FBI informant and psychotic Boston gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger has had a little bit of a checkered path to production. It was attached to Leonardo DiCaprio at one point but it has hit the screens at last with Johnny Depp in the title role. Depp’s career has taken a bit of a tumble in recent years and he was obviously hoping that a meaty role like this would give him a boost again. Black Mass is a film filled with familiar gangster tropes and while Depp is solid enough as Bulger, he isn’t quite convincing enough to carry it off.  The real problem here is that the more interesting and less familiar aspect of the story is that of FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) who becomes Bulger’s protector and falls in with the criminal fraternity of Boston, something which proves to be his undoing. Edgerton is a great actor and his presence here manages to lift what is a fairly generic and overly familiar tale into something that is worth watching. Cumberbatch as the brother of Bulger, Senator Billy, is decent but he turns in a rather cold performance as ever. Director Cooper is competent but he doesn’t really have the visual flair of a Scorsese or a Coppola and so what he turns in is an enjoyable but ultimately unremarkable telling of a story that deserves better. It is the best Depp film in a while but since the bar there has been set so low, that’s not really saying much…

JOEL MEADOWS

Billy Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch) leads a St Patrick’s Day march in Boston

John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) and James ‘Whitey’ Bulger (Johnny Depp)

Bulger (Depp) seeking redemption