If you plan on seeing BLACK MASS, the new crime drama about Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger, might I recommend you first check out last year's little-seen documentary WHITEY: UNITED STATTES OF AMERICA V. JAMES J. BULGER, from director Joe Berlinger (who made the PARADISE LOST trilogy). Not surprisingly, the two films contain a great deal of overlap, although I will admit I'm surprised by certain choices both make in terms of what was left out and what was emphasized. But being taken through Bulger's story in a more traditional documentary framwork makes it a great deal easier to understand the relationships among the dozens of characters in BLACK MASS. Just a suggestion.
BLACK MASS wants us to believe that it is the story of an Irish crime boss in South Boston whose reign of terror lasted from about the mid-'70s until the mid-'80s. And yes, Johnny Depp is quite impressive as Bulger, a man that could shake your hand in friendship and then strangle you as soon as you turn away. The aging up of Depp with makeup is part of the transformation, but there is something about Bulger's dead eyes, discolored tooth, corpse-pale skin and ragged voice that complete the transformation into a fearsome man. It's almost stranger to see him react lovingly to something than it is to start a fight with someone.
But the real central figure in BLACK MASS is FBI Agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton, who recently gave us a variation on the creepy guy in THE GIFT), who is given way more of a story arc than Bulger, who spends the entire film just being a murderous dick. But Connolly is something entirely different and far more complicated. He grew up with the Bulger brothers—Whitey and Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch), who went on to become a state senator—who protected him when he was just a kid. Connolly makes it clear that loyalty to and history with a person is the strongest bond there is. Unfortunately, he makes this point to his baffled wife Marianne (Julianne Nicholson), who is trying to understand and end the relationship her husband has with Whitey.
And while Connoelly is rising in the ranks at the FBI, he has devised an ingenious way to protect Whitey from any prosecution while making it look like he's helping out the FBI by signing him up as a confidential informant, who rarely actually contributes anything solid to active investigations. When Connolly's bosses (Kevin Bacon and Adam Scott) insist that Bulger give them something solid, he complies with something that is not only huge, but also serves to improve his control over South Boston. Connolly is always being played and he couldn't care less because it gives him a regular reason to be in close contact with his childhood hero. Connolly is as complicated an antihero as you'll find in any film this year, and Edgerton walks the line between giddy fan and law enforcement professional beautifully.
BLACK MASS has an impressive ensemble case that includes Whitey's partners Steve Flemmi (Rory Cochrane) and Kevin Weeks (Jesse Plemons), as well as Dakota Johnson as the mother of Whitey's only son, who dies young, killing the slightest bit of goodness in the man; Peter Sarsgaard as Brian Halloran, who rats out Whitey to the feds and pays the price; Juno Temple as Deborah Hussey, Steve's girlfriend whom Whitey deems killable for spending any amount of time talking to the cops; and Corey Stoll as prosecutor Fred Wyshak, who starts his new job with no bones about going after Whitey and is shocked at the FBI's relationship with him.
Based on the book by the same name from Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill (adapted by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth, BLACK MASS is easily the finest work from relatively new director Scott Cooper (CRAZY HEART, OUT OF THE FURNACE), who has a true gift for discovering the drama and tension in nearly every scene. However, there comes a point where we get that Whitey is a true, unredeemable villain and need to move onto something else about him that never comes. The filmmakers decided to excise any final-act scenes involving Bulger's post-Boston exile with girlfriend at the time Catherine Greig (played by Sienna Miller, who has now been cut from the film), and perhaps in those moments, we would have gotten some level of dimension in Depp's performance. Hopefully one day, we'll get to see those and other much-discussed edited sequences.
The one thing BLACK MASS never is is boring. It moves at a tight clip, without feeling like it's trying to rush us through a lot of material. There's a patience on display that's impressive, and thanks to a bevy of fascinating characters, director Cooper has an embarrassment of choices about where to turn our attentions next. The film has a steely grey tinge (courtesy of cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi) to it that makes it feel appropriately gritty and blue collar; apparently, nothing pretty grows in South Boston. The film is a gripping portrait of two friends who aren't really friends, and in the end, that spells doom for both of them. The film is worth seeing just for Depp's return to serious acting, but it's Edgerton's work that is most captivating. Either way, you win.
