Movie Review: "Black Mass" (Scott Cooper, 2015)

THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO SOUTHIE by Mo Shaunette

Above: Johnny Depp is Whitey Bulger in Mr. Cooper’s film.  Photo ©Warner Bros. Pictures

The story of James “Whitey” Bulger is so strange, so larger than life, that it almost begs to be turned into a movie.  Bulger, a Boston gang leader and elder brother to a state senator, made history when he cut a deal with his childhood friend, FBI agent John Connelly: that Bulger would turn over information on his Italian mafia rivals, in exchange for the Bureau turning a blind eye on his crimes.

This partnership lasted for decades, until Bulger’s exposure in 1995 forced him into hiding.  That story was chronicled in the true crime book “Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob” by Dick Lehr and Gerald O’Neill, which has now been adapted to film by director Scott Cooper (with Bulger’s 2011 arrest meaning the story at least has a stamp on the end).

“Black Mass” focuses in the rise of Bulger (Johnny Depp) to power and his eventual fall from grace.  The movie opens in 1975, with Bulger already the leader of the Winter Hill Gang in South Boston and stuck in a turf war with the mafia. S oon, Agent Connolly (Joel Edgerton) makes contact with him and their partnership to take down the Angiulo Brothers begins.  However, even after the mafia is arrested, the alliance continues, with Connolly protecting Bulger from his FBI partners and superiors, until the weight of Bulger’s crimes becomes too massive to be contained and both men are undone by the Bureau.

If there’s anything that hurts “Black Mask,” it’s the film’s screenplay (which was written by Jez Butterworth and Mark Mallouk).  The story occupies an uncomfortable space between reality and fiction; too plodding and aimless to be a polished three-act feature, too sensational and stylized to be a realistic, true-to-life depiction of a man who spent years on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.  The film never takes a strong stance on Bulger’s life—it doesn’t have a handle on who he was beyond the most basic iteration of “a bad man who did bad things.”

The characters in the movie certainly have ideas.  The film’s framing device features former members of Bulger’s inner circle (Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochraine, W. Earl Brown) giving testimony to a DEA agent (Lonnie Farmer), and it’s partially through their eyes that we see the many sides of Bulger: he was a brilliant planner and manipulator, a man protecting Southie from the mafia, an unpredictable psychopath, a ruthless killer, a leader, a mentor, a destroyer, a boss, and occasionally, even a friend.

That said, the script and the director never really get into Bulger’s head; we see his heinous actions, but we don’t understand entirely the motivation behind them, or his ever-shifting personal code of ethics (which is something that only Bulger seems to understand).  There are times when the movie feels less like the character study it’s trying to sell and more like a Wikipedia page recapping events in Bulger’s life.

Thankfully, the portrayal of Bulger himself holds the film together.  It’s sometimes easy to forget just how good an actor Johnny Depp is (given his recent run of bad career moves), but he turns Bulger into something otherworldly.  Wearing prosthetics that make him look like a cross between a Komodo dragon and the grim reaper and speaking in a growling Boston accent that sounds like a chainsaw about to start up, Mr. Depp makes Bulger seem like a demon masquerading as a human being.  True, there are humanizing moments when Bulger interacts with his family or friends, but he always turns on a dime into a remorseless monster when called upon to handle a rat in the gang or a rival criminal.  It’s the unpredictable terror of his very presence that holds the movie together.

The rest of the cast brings it too, including Mr. Edgerton (who makes Connolly’s subtle descent into corruption compelling) and Messrs. Plemons, Cochraine, and Brown, who are convincing both as eager young gangsters and weary older men remembering a life of violence.  However, a lot of the cast feels underutilized.  Benedict Cumberbatch does a fine job as Senator Billy Bulger, but the relationship between him and Whitey is barely touched on in the film and feels like a missed opportunity.  Other performers like Dakota Johnson (as Bulger’s first wife), Kevin Bacon (as Connolly’s FBI superior), and Julianne Nicholson (as Connolly’s wife) turn in good performances, but are mainly present to be victimized by Bulger or brushed off by Connolly.

In the end, “Black Mass” is a mess, but it's a mess with some amount of focus.  The relationship between Whitey Bulger and John Connolly is strong enough to keep the movie interesting and Mr. Cooper does a good job maintaining the tension throughout and making the violence seem brutal and real.  For those reasons, plus Johnny Depp’s captivating performance, I’m giving “Black Mass” a tentative recommendation.  If you’re really in the mood for gangster melodrama, give it a look.