Black Mass Reviews, , The question “When did you get out of Alcatraz?” is not usually followed by, “Well, it’s wonderful to have you back in the neighborhood.”
Unless, of course, the person asking is a little old Irish lady pulling a grocery cart and the one answering is James “Whitey” Bulger and they happen to be in South Boston. Neighbors love him and hate him and fear him and revere him in “Black Mass” starring Johnny Depp as Whitey, or Jimmy, as he preferred to be called.
The movie from “Out of the Furnace” and “Crazy Heart” director Scott Cooper dramatizes the FBI’s deal with the devil with the once-white hair. When FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) is transferred back to his hometown of Boston and ordered to go after the Italian Mafia in the ’70s, he puts out feelers to Whitey through his younger brother and friend, politician Billy Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch).
They’re all Irish Americans who grew up in the same housing project, a tie that will bind and burn, and John proposes an “alliance” between himself and Jimmy. In other words, Jimmy would become an informant although he does not see it that way: “I do not consider this rattin’ or informin.’ This is business.”
Jimmy uses his secret status with the FBI to take down enemies, shield himself from prosecution and become the most feared crime boss in Boston. John starts to slide from lawman to lawbreaker, putting his marriage, job and freedom at risk, not to mention the agency’s reputation. Jimmy, meanwhile, knows where the bodies are buried because he ordered the hits and put them there.
“Black Mass” is based on the book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill and it could feed a miniseries or a couple of TV seasons. It’s dense with characters, details and incidents, some of which naturally have been compressed or jettisoned along the way. That is especially true at the end of the picture.
Mr. Cooper doesn’t flinch from the savage violence, fear and intimidation but he also doesn’t ignore the son who plays gin with his mother at the dining room table, or the man who has a child of his own with a girlfriend (Dakota Johnson, better here than in the whole of “Fifty Shades of Grey”).
When the angelic looking boy says he got into trouble for hitting a classmate who stole pencils from his desk, Jimmy advises, “You did not get in trouble because you punched the sneaky little brat in the face,” but because he did it in front of other people. “If nobody sees it, it didn’t happen.”
The movie doesn’t rise to “GoodFellas” or certainly “The Godfather” status but it adroitly, efficiently guides us through gangster territory and allows Mr. Depp to shed the “Pirates of the Caribbean” affectations and just act. He dons blue contacts and a darkened front tooth and mimics Whitey’s receding hairline. He keeps moviegoers on a knife-edge, whether he’s testing a man with dinner-table talk or threatening a woman at her bedroom door, as with a scene featuring Julianne Nicholson as the FBI agent’s wife.
Mr. Edgerton, equally compelling in his chameleon turn, has a peacock’s strut and hair to match as the lawman is seduced by the lawless life. His loyalties become more and more misplaced before the story comes to a rather abrupt stop in a saga that has yet to end, just shift from Southie to behind bars.
Unless, of course, the person asking is a little old Irish lady pulling a grocery cart and the one answering is James “Whitey” Bulger and they happen to be in South Boston. Neighbors love him and hate him and fear him and revere him in “Black Mass” starring Johnny Depp as Whitey, or Jimmy, as he preferred to be called.
The movie from “Out of the Furnace” and “Crazy Heart” director Scott Cooper dramatizes the FBI’s deal with the devil with the once-white hair. When FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) is transferred back to his hometown of Boston and ordered to go after the Italian Mafia in the ’70s, he puts out feelers to Whitey through his younger brother and friend, politician Billy Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch).
They’re all Irish Americans who grew up in the same housing project, a tie that will bind and burn, and John proposes an “alliance” between himself and Jimmy. In other words, Jimmy would become an informant although he does not see it that way: “I do not consider this rattin’ or informin.’ This is business.”
Jimmy uses his secret status with the FBI to take down enemies, shield himself from prosecution and become the most feared crime boss in Boston. John starts to slide from lawman to lawbreaker, putting his marriage, job and freedom at risk, not to mention the agency’s reputation. Jimmy, meanwhile, knows where the bodies are buried because he ordered the hits and put them there.
“Black Mass” is based on the book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill and it could feed a miniseries or a couple of TV seasons. It’s dense with characters, details and incidents, some of which naturally have been compressed or jettisoned along the way. That is especially true at the end of the picture.
Mr. Cooper doesn’t flinch from the savage violence, fear and intimidation but he also doesn’t ignore the son who plays gin with his mother at the dining room table, or the man who has a child of his own with a girlfriend (Dakota Johnson, better here than in the whole of “Fifty Shades of Grey”).
When the angelic looking boy says he got into trouble for hitting a classmate who stole pencils from his desk, Jimmy advises, “You did not get in trouble because you punched the sneaky little brat in the face,” but because he did it in front of other people. “If nobody sees it, it didn’t happen.”
The movie doesn’t rise to “GoodFellas” or certainly “The Godfather” status but it adroitly, efficiently guides us through gangster territory and allows Mr. Depp to shed the “Pirates of the Caribbean” affectations and just act. He dons blue contacts and a darkened front tooth and mimics Whitey’s receding hairline. He keeps moviegoers on a knife-edge, whether he’s testing a man with dinner-table talk or threatening a woman at her bedroom door, as with a scene featuring Julianne Nicholson as the FBI agent’s wife.
Mr. Edgerton, equally compelling in his chameleon turn, has a peacock’s strut and hair to match as the lawman is seduced by the lawless life. His loyalties become more and more misplaced before the story comes to a rather abrupt stop in a saga that has yet to end, just shift from Southie to behind bars.
Blogger Comment
Facebook Comment