Black Mass (2015)

☆ ☆ ½

Black Mass (2015) – S. Cooper

Haven’t we seen this movie before?  It comes across a bit like sub-par Scorsese with its gangsters and compromised FBI agents.  I was waiting for something to take this further but the faux-Boston accents and make-upped over Johnny Depp just couldn’t do it.  Director Scott Cooper plays this strictly by the numbers, aiming for a commercial hit, no doubt.  Depp is Whitey Bulger, a real-life crime kingpin who evaded the law until 2011 after running rampant in the ‘70s and ‘80s.  He forms an “alliance” with FBI agent John Connolly (Australian Joel Edgerton) with the latter being played for a sucker as he protects his “informant”.  Even Benedict Cumberbatch is here with his Boston accent turned up strong as Bulger’s politician brother.  So, it’s just a genre film, recycling a genre that started in the 1930s with Edward G. Robinson and Jimmy Cagney. Depp fails to bring the charisma needed for the part (though perhaps the real Whitey wasn’t a charmer either).