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Finding honour in the true tale of a notoriously violent man who terrorised a city for decades is a tough task. Black Mass doesn’t praise its protagonist, James ‘Whitey’ Bulger (Johnny Depp, Mortdecai), nor does it applaud John Connolly (Joel Edgerton, Life), his childhood pal from the same streets of South Boston turned ambitious FBI agent seeking a government-gangster alliance. It does, however, linger on the loyalty that keeps them bound together as the former’s criminal escapades expand and the latter’s career flourishes. It embraces the fraternity of friends who willingly put their shared heritage and their connection first — one ruthlessly for illicit gains, the other out of misguided allegiance and affection — while the city around them falls prey to the vicious consequences of their camaraderie.
Such an approach, attempting to humanise flawed and fearsome figures placed within a procedural web, is far from novel, particularly in the mob movie realm into which this Scott Cooper (Out of the Furnace)-directed, Mark Mallouk (an executive producer of Everest) and Jez Butterworth (Edge of Tomorrow)-written effort sits. In adapting the 2001 factual tome Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, the trio stick to the genre playbook in charting the rise and fall of men ostensibly on opposite sides of the law and order divide, but united in their fates and fortunes. They revel in the clearly blurred lines. They lay bare the characters’ forays into increasingly dangerous and duplicitous territory. And yet, even as acts of brutality litter the film — albeit of the often intimated and heard rather than seen variety — the prominence of the foundation of Bulger and Connolly’s bond proves not only uncomfortable and overly emphasised, but convenient and superficial, offering an easy way to make audiences relate, even slightly, to people unlikely to earn such a reaction based on fact, not emotion.
Thus unravels twinned, typical antihero narratives spanning from 1975 to the 1990s, and largely framed as the remembrances of incarcerated acquaintances — errand boy Kevin Weeks (Jesse Plemons, The Homesman), assassin John Martorano (W. Earl Brown, TV’s True Detective) and right-hand man Steve Flemmi (Rory Cochrane, Oculus) among them — to police officers in order to negotiate more lenient sentences. Bulger started as a small-time neighbourhood heavy who took advantage of Connolly’s offer to become an informant, using it as a method of eradicating competition and leaping into more lucrative schemes, all while avoiding prosecution for his drug-peddling, scam-favouring, mass-murdering proclivities.
The personal sides of their lives, including the influence of Bulger’s senate president brother Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game), as well as eventual domestic disharmonies with their respective partners (featuring Fifty Shades of Grey‘s Dakota Johnson as the mother of Bulger’s child, and August: Osage County‘s Julianne Nicholson as Connolly’s wife), endeavour to give further flesh to their complications. Alas, aside from two standout altercations between Bulger and the feature’s most prominent female characters — and great, if too brief, showcases for each actress’ abilities, too — attempting to glean a deeper understanding into Bulger and Connolly’s machinations and motivations once again feels perfunctory rather than revelatory.
Indeed, though its grey, black and blue tones, fondness for shadows and penchant for alleyways give a visual indication of texture, Black Mass offers routine action and biographical information over any real sense of insight. The performances from the large ensemble cast, which also boasts Kevin Bacon (Cop Car), Adam Scott (The Overnight) and Corey Stoll (Ant-Man) as lawmen sincerely trying to stop Bulger’s activities, labour to add depth, which gives the feature its finest component. In the likes of a young prostitute (Juno Temple, Far From the Madding Crowd) trusting those who say they’ll protect her, a sweaty conspirator (Peter Sarsgaard, Night Moves) scared about escalating circumstances and a conflicted agent (David Harbour, A Walk Among the Tombstones) struggling with his choices, something more than reverence and routine colours the movie, if only for select scenes. Elsewhere, the same formula remains, piecing together a serviceably standard offering.
That includes Depp, peering out pensively from beneath mounds of makeup and channelling Ray Liotta — and his portrayal isn’t the only time Black Mass, to its detriment, reminds audiences of better gangster fare of years gone by, including in similar sequences. It may be the actor’s best work in some time, though the recent entries on his resume lessen that feat considerably. Edgerton brings energy and bravado to counteract Depp’s intensity and meticulousness, yet both suffer from the constraints of the film’s template. Selling the more palatable side of their characters while trying to stay within generic confines and garner genuine sentiment proves not just tough, but a capably attempted yet ultimately unfulfilled task.
Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
Black Mass
Director: Scott Cooper
US, 2015, 122 mins
Release date: October 8
Distributor: Roadshow
Rated: MA
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