Movie Review: 'Black Mass'

At some point in its evolution, director Scott Cooper and the other filmmakers behind the new Whitey Bulger biopic Black Mass made a fateful decision: They were not going to directly rip off Martin Scorsese, and instead were going to make a sprawling gangster tale that looked or felt absolutely nothing like Goodfellas, Casino or The Departed.

This decision was a blessing in a lot of ways. I mean, after American Hustle, I’m ready to give direct, inferior Scorsese ripoffs a rest for a decade or more. I also appreciated that, unlike Foxcatcher, American Hustle, and numerous other films of recent years, Black Mass didn’t attempt to turn its story into a parable about America itself. Because that sort of thing is just getting tiresome at this point. But in some other ways, that pivot is a curse. Overall, Black Mass is a winning effort, but it falls just sort of greatness.

It’s as though Black Mass took most of the salient things about Goodfellas and consciously did the exact opposite, for better or for worse. This is a bleak, punishing, tale, with dingy neighborhood locations, a drab color scheme, and just about no glamour to speak of, with only fleeting female nudity or drugs. There’s a slow pace, little pop music, and no voiceover narration from the protagonist, and instead of a three-hour running time, it’s barely over two.

Crime movies are sometimes accused of glamorizing criminals, and making being the gangster life look like a great time. No one will ever say that about “Black Mass”- this film makes crime look about as fun as a root canal.

I enjoyed this film. I found it compelling and entertaining, and fairly well-directed by Cooper. But I can’t see myself re-watching it over and over again when it comes on cable next year, and one gets the distinct sense that there’s something missing.

Then again, screwing up a real-life story as compelling as Bulger’s would really, truly take effort.

James “Whitey” Bulger was the leader of South Boston’s Irish Winter Hill Gang. In 1975, he struck a deal with the Boston FBI: He would become an informant and help put away his rivals in the Italian mob, and in return the feds would look the other way from Bulger and Co.’s crimes. This arrangement, leading to countless brutal murders, dragged on for going on two decades, facilitated by Bulger’s old pal, FBI agent John Connolly. The scheme came crashing down in the mid-‘90s, at which point Bulger fled for another 16 years, finally getting caught in California in 2011 and sentenced to consecutive life sentences. And during all of this, Bulger’s brother Billy was a powerful politician, first as president of the Massachusetts State Senate and then chancellor of the University of Massachusetts.

Black Mass- based on a standout book of the same name Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, the Boston Globe reporters who broke the story- tells this entire tale, casting it with first-rate actors. Johnny Depp is Whitey, Joel Edgerton is Connolly, Rory Cochrane is Bulger sidekick Stephen “the Rifleman” Flemmi, while Benedict Cumberbatch plays Billy Bulger, the only person in the movie with a nice house. Kevin Bacon, Adam Scott, W. Earl Brown and Jesse Plemons show up in small roles; if you’re among those who have long mistaken Peter Sarsgaard with Corey Stoll, they’re both in the film too.

I realize that Depp’s performance here has been divisive, but it’s obviously the actor’s best role in years. He’s scary as hell, and believable enough in the role that I stopped noticing his ridiculous bald cap after not too long. The film follows the repeated construction that Bulger gives someone a false sense of security that he’s not mad at them/isn’t going to kill them, but then goes ahead and does so in brutal fashion before long. The best scene in the film, by far, is a dinner party scene in which Bulger scares the hell out of an FBI underling (David Harbour) who he convinces to give up a family-secret steak recipe.

The other actors tackle their Boston accents with varying degrees of success. Edgerton is especially strong, as are Cochrane and Cumberbatch. Less so? Dakota Johnson, not the least bit believable in probably the movie’s most significant female role, which isn’t saying much.

So, what’s ultimately missing from Black Mass? We get almost no sense of who Whitey Bulger was or what made him tick during his crime reign. There’s the usual stuff about the old neighborhood and toughness and we eventually realize he’s a sadist and a murderer who got all the benefits of his FBI deal, while the feds got virtually none.

The other hole in the film is that even though it was filmed on location in Boston, it doesn’t really succeed in making Boston, or even South Boston, a “character.” The film is so insular that we get just about no sense of Bulger’s place in the city. It completely leaves out Bulger’s status as a folk hero, especially during his years on the run, which has always been one of the most compelling things about him.

The Whitey Bulger story has been cannibalized by Hollywood a lot over the years. Jack Nicholson’s Southie mob boss character in The Departed was something of a Whitey stand-in. The Showtime show Brotherhood was about a pair of brothers who were a gangster and a politician. And little details have even cropped up elsewhere, like the final-season Sopranos subplot in which the FBI guys started openly rooting for Tony. And there was a first-rate documentary last year, Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger, that covered the gangster’s eventual trial.

Now we finally have our “real” Whitey Bulger movie, with Black Mass. It’s good, and I’m glad it exists, but it could have been better.

Black Mass opens Friday at UA King of Prussia, Reel Cinemas Anthony Wayne 5, Reel Cinemas Narberth 2, AMC Plymouth Meeting 12 and other local theaters.