Review: Black Mass
It's not always easy to tell the cops from the robbers, one character notes in Black Mass. How many gangster films have audiences seen that paralleled the feds to the criminals, the hierarchal politics, the means deployed that offer scant difference except one bears badges and good intentions.
In Black Mass, there is a visual demarcation at play. The FBI agents resemble Kennedy wannabes with their three-piece suits and clean-shaven faces. The criminals, often branded street rats, come off like ferrety Nixons, blemished, bouldered or bloated, and ready to break out in a sweat. The first face we see is that of Kevin Weeks (Jesse Plemons), whose face seems smashed up even before any punches are thrown. Steve Flemmi (Rory Cochrane), meanwhile, has a visage as puffed out as his paunch. Weeks and Flemmi are henchmen to Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger, whose ascent from small-time hood to kingpin of the Bostonian badlands in the film.
No one loves messing with his face more than Johnny Depp, who has emoted from the carapace of Kabuki make-up as Edward Scissorhands, the pomaded hair and pencil-thin mustache of Ed Wood, the cloud of clown orange hair of the Mad Hatter, and the rock-star glam of Captain John Sparrow. Pale, thin hair receding as if in fright, ghoulishly blue eyes, mouth in a permanent sneer, Depp's Bulger is a fearsome figure and not because he's all but a fang and fingernail away from transforming into Nosferatu. The film works hard to literalise Bulger into a demon but the effort is unnecessary. Depp's Bulger intimidates because of the roiling energy harnessed within the stillness of his façade. He strikes without warning and often after he's lulled you into safety. A dart of an eye is as threatening as his hand around your throat. It's a very good performance, arguably the best Depp has delivered in quite a while, and it's almost great but not quite.
The same can be said for the film itself, which assiduously tracks the unlikely alliance between Bulger and FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), who proposes that Bulger become an informant for the bureau to help bring down the Angiulo crime family, who ruled Boston's North End. If Bulger cooperates, then Connolly will ensure the FBI turns a blind eye to his South Side rackets. Bulger agrees but makes it clear that he is neither rat nor informant. This is strictly business. As Bulger explains to Flemmi, it's a win-win deal - the FBI fights their wars and brings down their enemies while they have license to do whatever they want.
Complications predictably arise. For one thing, Buger's ambitions lead him into associations that leave him increasingly vulnerable to incrimination. Loose ends and potential threats are tied up and done away with in violent fashion. Bulger's most loyal men slowly come to realise that their loyalty does not guarantee their safety. The more they know, the more they can tell and Bulger is not about to have his enterprise endangered by anybody.
For Connolly, who grew up alongside Bulger in the streets of Boston, it is that very loyalty to the man who protected him from the neighbourhood bullies that binds and blinds him. [Connolly makes constant mention of his childhood ties to Bulger like some protective incantation.] He's intent on shielding Bulger from his superiors, who make no secret of their uncertainty and displeasure but who allow their doubts to be pushed aside by the force of Connolly's bluster. It should all be interesting and slightly shocking - how could Bulger have gotten away with so much, how will Connolly reconcile his hero worship with his own tainted actions - except it's not.
One can't argue with the craftsmanship that went into the film. Director and former actor Scott Cooper, as he proved in Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace, has a knack for eliciting complex performances from his actors. There's a surfeit of talent here and each and every one gets a chance to shine. Dakota Johnson, Julianne Nicholson, and Juno Temple all etch memorable characterisations as the women who must contend with their men's criminal activities.
Black Mass is well-composed, well-scored, well-edited. Yet it's not quite there. For all its narrative density, there is very little propulsion. The conflicts are understood rather than felt, and there is an overarching sense of déjà vu, which has less to do with Bulger's tale having already been told in fictional form in The Departed than in Cooper's evident thrall to the template established by both Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.
Black Mass
Directed by: Scott Cooper
Written by: Mark Mallouk, Jez Butterworth; based on the book Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill
Starring: Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dakota Johnson, Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgaard, Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane, David Harbour, Adam Scott, Julianne Nicholson, W. Earl Brown, Bill Camp, Juno Temple, Corey Stoll
