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A peculiar film, “Black Mass” recounts the convoluted criminal past of Boston gang boss James “Whitey” Bulger and is set in the city of Boston. You have to tune into its wavelength before it will actually work properly. But if you can do that, you may start to see method behind the film’s madness, and you may end up feeling the same way that I did, which is that despite all of its flaws, it’s the first film since “Eastern Promises” that has added anything truly fresh to the traditional street-level gangster story.
The general outlines don’t appear to promise anything remotely similar to that kind of experience, and the screenplay written by Jez Butterworth and Mark Mallouk sometimes uses the flashback structure (which is articulated through FBI interrogations of key Bulger associates) as an excuse to tell, or even summarize, rather than show. The chronology is patched up using voice-over narration based on testimonials, which is a common practice. We are introduced to Bulger, as well as his brother, Senator William “Billy” Bulger (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), and James Connolly, a childhood friend who later became an FBI agent. These two powerful people protect and aid Bulger (Joel Edgerton). We watch as Connolly comes up with a scheme to repay Bulger for looking out for him when they were both young by cooperating with the criminal in order to get information on the Italian mob that is moving in on his territory. In essence, Connolly is offering the FBI as Bulger’s unwitting private army in order to wage war on rivals. We meet Bulger’s doting girlfriend Lindsey Cyr (Dakota Johnson) and his adorable son Douglas Cyr (Luke Ryan), and of course Bulger’s criminal gang; their ranks include Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane, and the great W. Earl Brown, who is turning into the Warren Oates of modern urban potboilers. Although each of the performers is outstanding and leaves at least one lasting impression, they don’t really stand out as individuals very much overall. They appear and disappear at random throughout the narrative, and when they do, it may take you by surprise because you had forgotten that one of the characters was still alive when he reappears later on. The one and only exception to this rule is Peter Sarsgaard, whose supporting role as a jittery cocaine addict encapsulates a man’s pitiful life in a mere four scenes.
There are times when you might question whether or not the film’s overall gloomy mood was the right choice. The arrangement that Bulger had with the FBI, which was enabled by his lapdog Connolly, who thwarted testimony and fudged evidence to keep his pal from getting prosecuted, appears to be such a blatant con that you wouldn’t believe it went on for years unless other reading confirmed that yes, in fact, this is how it happened. Bulger’s arrangement with the FBI was enabled by Connolly, who thwarted testimony and fudged evidence to keep his The staggering incompetence that this film attributes to the Boston bureau of the FBI suggests that Cooper and company may have missed the boat by not turning “Black Mass” into a dark comedy about how easy it is to corrupt institutions from within. This would have been a topic that would have been appropriate for a comedy. (The performance that Kevin Bacon gives as Connolly’s incredulous superior feels more comedic than dramatic; on some level, he knows what kind of con is being run, but he can’t believe how difficult it is to prove it.) Nevertheless, as the movie progresses, particularly through the character of Connolly, you get a sense of the fundamental absurdity that underlies it all. Because he acts like he’s on the side of the angels, he’s not only one of the most notorious con artists in cinematic history, but also, in some respects, a more unsettling character than Bulger.
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It has been said that “Black Mass,” which was directed by Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart,” “Out of the Furnace”), is a derivative piece of work that relies far too heavily on savage violence, talk of loyalty and honor, profane banter, and other elements that are familiar to fans of Martin Scorsese, whose gangster films provide much of its DNA. This is correct in every way. On the other hand, this is a shallow way to criticize the movie while ignoring the film’s core message. “Black Mass” is, at its core, a moral fable that has overtones of religion that are not in the least bit subtle. It focuses on the concept that evil can thrive if it simply possesses more charisma and decisiveness than good does. This movie provides an explanation if you’ve ever pondered questions such as “how four men with box cutters could hijack a crowded airliner?” or “how one bully on a subway car could berate his girlfriend for twenty stops without anyone else intervening.” It portrays Bulger’s ongoing, multi-decade rampage as a waking nightmare that the people involved in it couldn’t believe was happening even as it was taking place. The concept that a person who spreads disorder, such as Bulger, could live peacefully in a major city for a significant amount of time, going to jail for a period of time, and then getting out and picking up right where he left off, running numbers and controlling vending machines, dealing drugs, and killing enemies on the streets of South Boston, appears to be beyond the realm of possibility. In brazen and unsettling ways, the movie taps into that unreality.
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There is so much makeup on Johnny Depp when he plays the role of Bulger that if you stood him up next to a sculpture of the same character at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, you wouldn’t be able to tell which was the statue and which was Johnny Depp. He is the only one of the characters who does not appear to be a human being at first glance. It appears that Cooper and his cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi intend for this to be the case given the way that they photograph him. It’s possible that Bulger is a gangster ghoul because of his lifeless eyes, ashy skin, slicked-back grey hair, dingy track suits, and sagging slacks. The movie portrays him as a literal monster by frequently shrouding him in darkness or partially shadowing him, as well as silhouetting him. One shot shows Bulger from above, lying on a couch and staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling while the camera slowly zooms out; it’s the kind of shot you’d take of Dracula relaxing in his coffin. In a scene near the end of “Black Mass,” Bulger rings the doorbell of a woman’s bedroom while she is in the middle of reading “The Exorcist.” When Bulger is stalking and shooting an informant in a parking lot, he seems to swoop out of the sun like a dragon, and when he leaves the scene of the crime, the harsh gold light halos him like Leatherface does at the end of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Touches like these make “Black Mass” feel less realistic and more expressionistic, like Scorsese’s remake of “Cape Fear,” which envisioned ordinary people being terrorized by a diabolical ex-convict who seemed as unstoppable as Michael Meyers in “Halloween,” or the Terminator, or the original silent-film bloodsucker Nosferatu, who could paralyze mortals by looking into their eyes. In “Black Mass,” these kinds of touches
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What we are seeing in “Black Mass,” therefore, is not exactly Bulger, even though we do see small-scaled moments of him interacting with his lover and son and underlings, as a regular person might. We are primarily exposed to the concept of Bulger, which is to say, what Bulger stood for in the eyes of the individuals whom he duped, terrified, and manipulated into doing his bidding. The narrative focuses primarily on the perspectives of Bulger’s colleagues in the criminal underworld. They come forward one after the other, describing some new aspect of the awfulness that their boss possesses and admitting that they are unable to reject it. In a scene in which Bulger strangles another potential informant, the camera moves away from the murder to observe the reactions of the man who enabled it. This allows the audience to better comprehend the man’s shocked realization that he still possesses some of his soul and does not want Bulger to take it from him.
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We are never granted access to the emotional workings of Bulger’s mind. Every time we examine him, we do so from a narratively removed vantage point. The fact that he is constantly being responded to or described, rather than entered into and comprehended, is one factor that contributes to the idea of Bulger as “Bulger.” The majority of the scenes that take place in the FBI interrogation room, as well as many of the scenes in which Bulger tries to pry information or extract pledges of loyalty from his men, are filmed by Cooper in a straightforward, tightly-framed, shot-reverse shot pattern. This pattern is reminiscent of a priest and a parishioner in a confession booth. Even this makes sense in this context. What the other characters are describing (or confessing to) is an ongoing pact that they made with a real-life devil, and the irreversible moral and perhaps spiritual damage that they realized they had suffered too late to save their souls. This is what the other characters are describing (or confessing to). The score composed by Tom Holkenburg is mournful, serving as music for remembering a tragic event. At other times, however, it plays very low notes that sound as if they were played on a pipe organ, thereby proving that the film’s punny title is spot on.
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Because of all of these factors, Depp is the ideal actor to play Bulger in the movie “Black Mass.” In many of his other roles, he seems to be channeling actors like Lon Chaney, Peter Sellers, and Orson Welles, who made extravagant makeup and extreme gestures a part of the experience. This is another performance in the same vein; it is a new panel that will be added to a gallery that showcases characters such as Captain Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissorhands, and Willy Wonka. Depp is primarily portraying the myth here, not the man; not who Bulger was, but what he meant. Despite the fact that the performance has moments of dry humor and even tenderness (mainly towards Bulger’s girlfriend and son and his sainted mother, who cheats at cards), the performance is primarily focused on Bulger. When viewed in this light, the decisions that Depp and the film makers made seem entirely appropriate. In this scene, Depp is chilling in the same way that great horror movie actors of the 1930s and 1940s were chilling in their roles.
The concept at the heart of “Black Mass” may be strong, but the play as a whole suffers from poor execution. It seems to be building up to greatness for the majority of the duration of its running time, only to then turn around and sit down and brood a little bit more. It’s not quite there, which is frustrating, and in some ways it’s only half-assed. However, it possesses a vision, and it is a potent one at that. It’s a gangster flick in the horror genre. It remains fresh in one’s memory.
For more personality quizzes check this: The Wedding Ringer Quiz.
