Black Mass - Is Johnny Depp back?
In recent times, I have seen several of those web sites that draw you in from Facebook, and a couple of them have had lists of Hollywood actors who have become box office poison. Johnny Depp had entered those lists, so he needs a movie that can be a comeback. If I’m right, Black Mass might be the beginning of a comeback…probably not the whole thing, but a good start. In Black Mass, Depp plays real-life South Boston Irish gangster Whitey Bulger, a guy who challenged the Italian mob for control of various vices in Boston several decades ago. Bulger not only challenged them on the street, but also became an FBI informer, feeding them information they could use to bring down the Mafia. In addition, Bulger’s brother was a leading Massachusetts politician, a respectable, Kennedy-esque guy who shares meals with Whitey on holidays but does not share any of his behaviors or “friends”. At this point in real life, Bulger is serving multiple life sentences, having been convicted on several of his many murders.
Johnny Depp plays a cold-eyed Whitey, Benedict Cumberback is his respectable brother Billy, Joel Edgerton is John Connolly, a fellow “Southie” and FBI agent who recruits Whitey as an informer. Kevin Bacon also appears as supervising FBI agent Charles McGuire. The film was directed by Scott Cooper. My other experience with his films was Crazy Heart, from 2009 which I really liked. As gangster movies go, Black Mass avoids the whole Godfather thing, which placed these guys as operatic characters in an epic drama and tends toward something more like Goodfellas, namely gangsters as sociopaths. Way back, when I was studying clinical psychology, I recall that there was a distinction made between ordinary sociopaths, who are simply malignantly narcissistic, and have no normal human relations and gangsters. Murderous gangsters sometimes are a variation on “regular” sociopathy in that they have loyalty to family, the people they see as friends and often to a social group, in the case of Bulger, the Irish-descended people of South Boston. Bulger mostly confines his murders mainly to outsiders, gang opponents or associates that he sees as having betrayed him.
Black Mass is a fairly slow, tense, personal movie, with some brutal violence, but not an action film. The film focuses on Bulger’s relationships with family, his brutal business dealings, the slow and methodical investigation that brought down some of the organized crime that plagued Boston in the 1970s and 1980s and the very slippery slope that connected Bulger, and the FBI investigation that used him as an asset and that wanted to slam him too. Throughout the investigation, the FBI thought that Italian mob was a higher priority, but ultimately, they wanted to bring down the Irish once they were finished with the Italians. Bulger cooperated in order to rub out his opponents, while hoping to use the shady investigation to protect himself. The tension this breeds in the film is relentless, as is the malignant coldness of Bulger himself…violence is always just an instant away. That said, as gangster movies go, it’s not excessive on action or violence; most of the tension comes from the constant threat.
Because Bulger is an actual person who is still alive, it’s hard to judge Depp’s portrayal without knowing more about Bulger than I do. As a character in a movie, Depp’s version of him is cold, calculating, manipulative and scary. He’s not physically impressive but Depp’s Bulger has that fearless, unblinking and uninhibited attitude that can often intimidate people much larger and conventionally threatening. Every time he walks into a scene, you fear that something is about to happen, you don’t take your eyes off him and you breathe easier when he’s gone. As for co-stars, Cumberbatch and Edgerton tried to shed their British accents and act like Southies, with some success. In the authenticity department, none of the main characters seemed to have the right accent and all of them were somewhat different. Fortunately, I didn’t see the movie for the authentic accents. The narrative timeline is confusing sometimes as the film spans a number of years and includes flashbacks. At 2 hours and 2 minutes, the movie feels longer than it is, mainly because I was anticipating being out of the presence of Whitey…such a creepy character. I give this one a solid 4, and excellent crime story that avoids excessive reliance on action and car chases. It’s mainly an actors’ film, done quite well. I don’t know that I exactly enjoyed it as much as I thought it was excellently done. I was somewhat surprised to find see that our local cineplex had it on two screens simultaneously, that one screen was sold out and the one we got into was nearly full. I’m guessing that this movie will be a big hit and a relief to fans of Johnny Depp. Don’t miss if if you like these sort of stories.
