In its best scenes, Black Mass flirts with the extraordinary. The rest of the film, by no means prosaic, is propelled by a stellar ensemble cast in support of two unforgettable lead performances. Johnny Depp, who by now you know sports a killer baldcap, exorbitant latex makeup and two contact-lens-fueled blue eyes, inhabits the persona of the legendary Boston Irish mobster Jimmy “Whitey” Bulger. Australian ace actor (and now very credible director–see this year’s The Gift) Joel Edgerton goes no less full force in portraying the childhood buddy of Bulger turned FBI agent, John Connolly.
It’s been a while we’ve had a gangster pic this good. In fact, the last one this well done and authentic was probably Scorcese’s The Departed (2006), itself partially based on a Bulger then played by Jack Nicholson. Cooper and co-screenwriters Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth are forced to economize interesting aspects of Bulger’s biography. He was a guinea pig for LSD experiments while in prison in his early years and during the time frame of the film Bulger actually wins $14 million in the Massachusetts State Lottery, yet both are barely mentioned in the film. Nonetheless, the force and brutality of Bulger could hardly be captured any more incisively.
While the stirring steak dinner scene in Black Mass channels Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, the goings on here depart from Scorcese in the direction of the straightforward, with lessened pyrotechnics to glamorize the acts of a very mean-spirited man. Director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) does try his best to humanize Bulger, to mixed effect, but his depiction of him is unflinchingly honest regarding Bulger’s sociopathology. He may be liked by his neighbors and treat his mom very nicely, but he’s not above talking warmly to an underling just before blowing his brains out. Or targeting family members of trusted associates.
All the while, Bulger’s brother Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch), no less than the president of the Massachusetts Senate, looks on, ostensibly neutral. Connolly talks Bulger into turning informant for Bulger’s own protection from the “eye-talian” North Boston Angiulo gang, who, upon getting very powerful, are prime targets for the FBI. Connolly must sell the idea to his superior (a very good Kevin Bacon), a savvy cop with a built-in bullshit detector, but Connolly gets the best of him. Connolly’s only indomitable foe is his own wife (the brilliant Julianne Nicholson), who’s both too innocent and way too smart to fall for the charade her husband sets up. In a vivid later scene where she hides pretending to be sick in her bedroom behind a locked door in order to avoid Bulger, he takes the liberty to pay her a visit to “check up on her.” The results channel not just Bulger’s depravity, but, oddly, his own sharp memory of his son’s demise from a rare affliction years earlier. Even when Bulger might be resembling a caring human being, he’s more likely simultaneously playing a sick angle.
Seventeen years after playing an undercover FBI agent in the underrated Donnie Brasco, and six years after portraying John Dillinger in the undistinguished Public Enemies, Depp inhabits Bulger’s character in a gripping yet almost understated manner. Depp throws all the requisite facial tics, squinting eyes, and Boston-accented invective our way. Yet what distinguishes his performance is an innate ability to express both emotion and the lack of it while hardly batting an eyelash. The supporting players are uniformly great here, not least a rollicking, manic Peter Sarsgaard as a paranoid, coke-snorting smalltime hood. Yet they hold court for Depp, whose Bulger lingers in the memory like a bad dream.