The criminals are unshaven, lumpy, wart-faced, puffy; Johnny Depp, with his sharpened cheekbones, resembles Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera; whereas F.B.I. agents all appear like stars come to life, like smooth and glossy Efrem Zimbalists.
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Johnny Depp is a thespian, or was at any rate.
James: Depp is indeed a terrific actor. It made me a little sleepy. There’s a man who loves. Remember the story of Mickey Rourke? Cumberbatch has a native English accent, but puts on a Bostonian one and pulls himself into his role as the intimidating politician that knows too well about his brother’s criminal activities. Wow, that got off topic. It is not ideal or as good as the best gangster films, but it’s still a solid movie. There were moments in this film where Depp left, and Bulger was there. Anyhow, what did you think of the movie as a whole?
MICHELLE: Maybe it’s the hypocrite aspect of the character I despised.
Now, the other characters in the movie were okay, honestly. Edgerton is only weeks off impressing in a very different performance in “The Gift“. It takes some adjusting to, but eventually Benedict Cumberbatch seems more northeastern than British.
James: The ensemble cast is definitely the high point here. This guy looked and acted like a snake the whole film through.
Bulger, who served as an FBI informant, has not yet seen the movie based off his life, his attorney said earlier this week of the 86-year-old. The film felt rushed towards the end. Nobody lazes through this flick on a typical persona, except maybe Temple. Joel Edgerton did a good job as John Connelly, but it was nothing special. With his unconvincing bald cap, distracting blue contacts and ever-present pleather jacket, Depp’s Bulger resembles Nosferatu if he played Fonzie on “Happy Days”.
Buried nearby: Deborah Hussey was one of three people whose remains were concealed in the basement of a house just a block away from Billy Bulger’s home.
Unfortunately, in “Black Mass” that isn’t the case. If he’s particularly powerful or wealthy, there’s nothing in the movie to show it; he’s just a disturbed and violent man with no emotion, no desire.
Patricia Donahue, whose husband was killed by Bulger and an associate in 1982, said she doesn’t understand why anyone would want to buy or sell anything that belonged to Bulger. One can already see that something isn’t right with Bulger. I felt that might have been a stronger framework of the story if told in a more slender, thoughtful manner. Many residents of South Boston responded with fury, threatening violence against the black students who arrived by bus. Narratively, the film is kind of a mess. “What am I going to do, play him like Lee Majors?” That didn’t really happen. The movie feels real and raw. With Black Mass, the 52-year-old actor turns over a new page in his filmography, in a performance so startling he can never go back. At least then we would have gotten a clear idea of what the film wanted to be.
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In the movie’s scale of emotional triggers, murder comes off in the list of monstrosities somewhere below racism-or, rather, Whitey Bulger’s crimes register so far off the charts as to become, in “Black Mass“, pure spectacle, pure sensation.
