Movie Review: Black Mass

Not so much Goodfellas as it is Badaccents, Boston bad-guy flick Black Mass has a compelling story to tell but can’t manage to transcend its genre’s bar-setters.

After some time at sea – literally and figuratively - Johnny Depp wants to terrify audiences again.

It shouldn’t be that much of a stretch, given that “terror” is precisely what meets most viewers confronted by one of his new releases.

After six consecutive cratering flops - Mortdecai, Tusk, Transcendence, The Lone Ranger, Dark Shadows and The Rum Diary – it’s understandable he’d want to shed the expectation of bringing blockbuster grosses and reintroduce himself as a proper thespian. (You’ll have to cast your mind back to a previous millennium, but there was indeed a time when this was his factory setting.)

And yet, prestige eludes him in Black Mass, a very competent crime drama that nonetheless centers on a very silly actor.

As notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, Depp is drowned in the same unconvincing prosthetics and pallid makeup as his rider seemingly insists on all productions. (Never forget: his nose in Tusk was practically a penis.)

The performer underneath undeniably has the magnetic charisma of a true star. Still, being watchable is a far cry from being involving. Given that the film’s title brings to mind a cancerous mound, you need a lead that suggests real menace, rather than one who inspires giggles.

The story begins in 1975, when Bulger’s hair is thin, his wrinkles are pronounced and his reputation looms large. Note that Depp, in these sequences, is being made-up like a ghoul to play a character seven years his junior.

Jez Butterworth and Mark Mallouk’s script toys with a novel storytelling device, having Bulger’s crimes detailed by his underlings during their police confessionals. (As if Goodfellas wasn’t already being brought to mind, suddenly we have Black Mass competing with Scorsese's Casino for most narrators.)

Unfortunately, as we travel from 1975 – when Bulger was a small-timer - to 1994 – now a kingpin, protected by the FBI – Black Mass fails to maintain a propulsive pace, purposely avoiding the stylistic opportunities that would have come with voice-overs from multiple perspectives. Cooper has made fine, unremarkable pictures before this one. Do not expect the next Rashomon to come from him.

Watching Depp’s psychotic Whitey wreak havoc across Boston and execute his enemies indiscriminately is what viewers are paying for, though the movie’s magic is just slightly off to the side, where Joel Edgerton’s FBI agent John Connolly finds himself deeper and deeper in Bulger’s pocket, based on some misguided loyalty from their shared childhood in South Boston.

As he rises the ranks – and then crashes down, spectacularly – Edgerton maintains a flamboyant charm in the face of increasing personal turmoil. There is at least one bona fide thespian anchoring Black Mass, and it ain’t Depp.

A bunch of your favourite character actors entertainingly play dress-ups alongside Depp and Edgerton, either as cops (Kevin Bacon, Adam Scott, David Harbour, Corey Stoll) or robbers (Peter Sarsgaard, Rory Cochrane, W. Earl Brown).

Julianne Nicholson is especially engrossing as Connolly’s beleaguered wife, and her distressing showdown with Whitey is the feature’s most compelling moment, not because of how Depp hams up his threats towards her, but because of how she withstands them so sensitively.

Dakota Johnson, as Whitey’s wife Lindsey, and Benedict Cumberbatch, as brother Billy Bulger, don’t fare as well under the weight of their affected Boston accents.

Friday Night Light’s Jesse Plemons, introduced as our first criminal storyteller, never has a chance to impress, plastered with a fake face that resembles the villain from The Mask.

Maybe they made Plemons appear inhuman so that his frequent scene partner, Depp, would resemble an actual person by comparison. This is the burden Depp puts on each of his movies now. No matter how good the work around him is, it’s impossible to take a movie seriously when the leading man looks - and acts - like Goldmember.

3/5

In cinemas now. Rated MA15+ for strong violence and coarse language.