OCTOBER 9, 2015
As a transplant from New England to Southern California, I was stunned in 2011 when I heard that James (don’t call him Whitey) Bulger, the legendary South Boston gangster, was finally arrested just miles from our house as he was living out his golden years in nearby Santa Monica. You see, among New Englanders, Bulger had a kind of folk hero status, a South Boston mobster who seemed to operate unencumbered until, at the moment when the Feds were about to move in, he completely disappeared.
Bulger’s story has been adapted twice before onscreen — factually in the 2014 documentary “Whitey” and very fictionally in Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Best Picture winner “The Departed,” where Jack Nicholson had a ball playing a Bulger-inspired character. Now we have “Black Mass,” directed by Scott Cooper, which takes a different tack — it focuses on the interesting question of just why Bulger was able to operate so unencumbered.
There is Boston, and then there is South Boston, a different animal entirely. Southie is very insular, very clannish and it protects its own, which makes it the perfect place for the Irish mob to operate. And that’s what Bulger did in 1975 when he was first establishing his stronghold there. Though reportedly kind and caring in his personal life — the film even shows him helping a little old lady neighbor with her groceries! — Bulger (Johnny Depp) was brutal and sadistic in ridding himself of any threat, whether genuine or imagined.
Bulger is approached by a childhood friend, John Connolly (a good if occasionally hammy Joel Edgerton), who is now an FBI agent and is anxious to rid the city of the Italian mafia headquartered in North Boston. Connolly proposes an alliance — Bulger would agree to become an informant on the other crime groups and Connolly would protect him from prosecution. This works out well for both parties, especially Connolly who gets a taste of the mobster life with gold watches and flashy suits. That is until there’s a new prosecutor in town, Fred Wyshak (Corey Stoll), who asks the pertinent question, “Why hasn’t anyone nailed Whitey Bulger?”
The big question usually asked of “Black Mass” is about Johnny Depp. Is it his comeback? In the first place, he’s never left. He’s just been obsessed with these Mad Hatter/Willy Wonka/Into the Woods Wolf/Mordecai kinds of play-acting roles that have done his reputation no favors. So yes, this is the first role he’s had in some time that shows what Depp can do as an actor. It’s a very steely kind of performance, from his cold blue eyes to the frigid way he dispatches his victims. Once you get over the power of his new look here, though, the range of the character actually limits what he can show, so it’s a performance one can admire more than love.
Cooper has fielded a pretty deep bench of supporting players here: Benedict Cumberbatch as Bulger’s legit State Senator brother; Kevin Bacon, Adam Scott and David Harbour on the FBI side; Dakota Johnson as Bulger’s baby mama; Juno Temple as a doomed hooker and Julianne Nicholson as Connolly’s increasingly alienated wife Marianne. And what actor wouldn’t jump at the chance to tell this story? The Boston accents are at least as broad as the lapels on the cast’s double-breasted suits.
The problem here is there’s no entry point for the audience to care about these characters. “Black Mass” is a very cold movie, completely lacking the warmth and humor that made even the most brutal gangster films — “The Godfather” series, “GoodFellas” — so approachable. It deprives the film of a beating heart, which is so necessary for audience involvement amid the mayhem.
The film only came to life for me in two back-to-back scenes midway through. Connolly has invited some pals, including Bulger, to a backyard barbecue. At the dinner table, Bulger asks dirty FBI agent John Morris (Harbour) for his “family secret” marinade recipe, and the agent gives it up willingly. Bulger then turns on him and speculates if he gave up a family secret so easily, then he might give up Bulger just as fast. Wondering why Connolly’s wife Marianne (Nicholson) isn’t at the table with them, the concerned gangster then excuses himself and heads upstairs to determine if Marianne, who has feigned illness, is genuinely sick. He rubs his hand over her forehead to check for fever, then puts his hands around her neck to examine any swollen glands. The message is clear. The heart in these two scenes may be cold, but it’s also beating wildly.
If only the rest of the film reached these heights. I wish there was more blood in “Black Mass.” Not on the screen — there’s plenty of that. I just wish there was more blood flowing in its veins.
GRADE: C+
 Bulger, the legendary…){kind=link}