MOVIE REVIEW
“Black Mass”
Grade: B
Starring Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton and Dakota Johnson. Directed by Scott Cooper.
Rated R for brutal violence, language throughout, some sexual references and brief drug use. Check listings for theaters. 2 hours, 2 minutes.
Bottom line: A true-crime film that's solid and vividly acted
Turns out the thing Johnny Depp’s career needed was simple. He needed to play a type of role relatively new to him, even if it’s relatively familiar to the rest of us.
Some scenes in the solid, vividly acted gangster picture “Black Mass” come from real life, or something like it. These trade off with scenes yanked straight out of the movies. In a major “GoodFellas” moment, Depp, as South Boston underworld kingpin James “Whitey” Bulger, has been invited over for steaks on the grill at the home of his old neighborhood pal and current Federal Bureau of Investigation liaison and protector John Connolly (Joel Edgerton). Connolly’s wife is upstairs, both angry and fearful about the social engagement.
The true-crime film, directed with calm authority by Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart,” “Out of the Furnace”), draws direct and indirect parallels to other films, “GoodFellas” and “The Departed” among them.
After a prologue, in which one of Bulger’s Winter Hill Gang associates (Jesse Plemons) recounts his story to the feds, the movie zips back to the mid-1970s. It traces Bulger’s rise; his relationship with a sometime-mistress played by Dakota Johnson, with whom he has a son with his own tragic destiny; and an empire founded on slots, vending machines, drugs and extortion, plus murder.
Then comes the sweetheart deal, just as some FBI higher-ups are getting suspicious about the leeway the local boys are giving Bulger. Connolly makes a proposition: If Bulger helps the FBI rat out and clean up the Irish underworld’s nemesis, the Italian-American mafia, Bulger can do as he pleases. Just lay off the killing, Connolly says. Bulger does not.
With false and rotted teeth, slicked-back hair and a masklike countenance right next door to Kabuki, the makeup and costume particulars of the role no doubt appealed to Depp, who loves to play dress-up on screen. (Most actors do.) He resembles Orson Welles as the older, hollowed-out Charles Foster Kane, only he’s tricked out in black leather and massive sunglasses. Behind those glasses, Depp’s sidelong glances are enough to curdle milk. For a while you wonder: Is this performance going to settle for tics, mannerisms, a collection of character flourishes? But Depp gets past that. “Black Mass” spreads it around; we see Bulger in his native elements, and his scene partners are up for anything.
