Benedict Cumberbatch plays Bulger’s politician brother, Billy, who speaks with a Connecticut accent that is completely unconvincing coming out of his face. Not Connolly, not Whitey or the Mafia.
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The film is told somewhat as a flashback through the testimonies and confessions of Whitey’s many criminal associates. “It’s his life, and I’m playing him onscreen, ,” Depp said.
Yet the reality is that Black Mass has more affinity with the crime pictures that James Cagney was making at Warners in the 1930s.
Whether he’s holding his own in Black Mass with Johnny Depp, challenging Leonardo DiCaprio’s integrity in The Great Gatsby, playing opposite Christian Bale in the biblical epic Exodus, or fighting a beefed-up Tom Hardy in the heartbreaking Warrior, actor Joel Edgerton is always re-inventing himself.
Edgerton plays a corrupt and greedy FBI agent very well, and Plemons is extremely cold and unsafe as one of Whitey’s main men. Black Mass also stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Juno Temple, W Earl Brown, Corey Stoll, and Adam Scott. The pacing of the film is also an issue.
“That’s why it was written, otherwise I would have never wrote the book”, said Weeks. Brutal content, bad language and violent deaths fill the screen. Depp is chilling in the role throughout the film, but the way women are treated in this story is especially cruel, though the actresses really don’t have enough to do. The makeup and facial design may bother or distract some viewers, but personally I was able to get past it pretty quick. In this case Bulger had fed intelligence to Connolly and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in exchange for protection in their burgeoning crime empire.
What are your thoughts on Whitey’s sentiments about Black Mass? And today, as the actor is coasting on the positive critical feedback he received in Toronto and Venice, a single pan for Depp’s revelatory performance has surfaced…from Bulger’s camp.
The story follows the deterioration of Bulger’s personal life as he rises to power, his growing relationship with Connolly and his terrifying reign in the criminal world.
It takes a while to warm up to Black Mass, director Scott Cooper’s take on real events in the Boston of “70s and ’80s.A slow potboiler, it aspires to be a period crime drama, with flashes of family ties and brotherhood with a tinge of betrayal”. The running time is 2 hours and 2 minutes.
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It is not until the story unfolds, however, that we realise that we have been stupefied by the violence of one man, and that the film fails to provide insight into the conditions that created him or comment on the importance of justice.
