Goodfellas, Godfather, Donnie Brasco and Carlito’s Way. These are all fantastic gangster movies and Black Mass has certainly taken a leaf from each of these films and manages to hold its own in many ways against these cinematic heavyweights and mostly because of Johnny Depp. Yes that’s right, Johnny Depp. The man obsessed with eye liner, hairspray and prosthetics being stuck to his face as he prances around and pulls odd ball faces whenever he needs to emote a reaction to camera pulls back from his consistent pantomime performances of the last decade to give us a truly terrifying performance as James “Whitey” Bulger. Black Mass is the true story of how FBI Agent John Connolly colluded with Irish mobster “Whitey” Bulger to take down the Italian mob, however as the story went on the balance of power shifted to Bulger who was in to anything, as long as it was illegal and became almost untouchable.
With Boston as the backdrop for the story and a large ensemble cast of quality actors such as Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch and Breaking Bad’s Jesse Plemons it becomes a competition for who can pull off the best Boston accent. We’ve got the Brits, the Aussies, and the Texans all battling it out for who can out-BOSTON the others in the cast. But Boston accents aside this film is all about Depp’s performance.
Johnny Depp looks f*cking scary and intimidating as Bulger which is refreshing after his long foray into silly faces and wide eyed reactions in big budget pirate movies and the like. It shows that he can still give a great performance when he gives a sh*t. It’s his eyes that really sell it in this film with a death stare so criminal he could easily serve six consecutive life sentences just off one look. On top of this it’s his delivery that makes him sound like a man you do not want to mess with along with the skin crawling way he’ll touch people when he wants them to feel uncomfortable.
The film itself borrows from all the great gangster movies of the 70’s and 80’s but not in a way that feels like a blatant rip-off and not in a way that is to the film’s detriment. At times it has the lighting of The Godfather whilst using the camera moves of Scorsese’s Goodfellas and borrows here and there from the other greats. This all adds to the look and feel of the film, it feels like this could have been made in the late 70‘s or early 80‘s it just feels so authentic. The only issue I find these homages is that the originals still did it better. For all the violence of Black Mass it doesn’t compare to the Goodfellas and the Godfathers it just feels that little bit more reserved. Whilst the camera is not willing to linger uncomfortably the way DePalma or Scorsese might have done back in their heyday. This doesn’t hurt Black Mass in any way, it just reminds you that other films have done it better.
Overall, this film holds itself up as a good example of a modern day gangster film that has the look and feel of Scorsese and Coppola if not necessarily the edge of their work. It’s a return to form for Depp and a wish that he would take on more roles like this in the future and if you only need one reason to see the film then let Depp be that reason.
Black Mass gets Four out of Five Stars (or Four out of Five reasons for Depp to put down the eye-liner)
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