Well, Oscar season is now upon us and our first major contender is here with Johnny Depp in Black Mass, and it opens with a bang.
Black Mass is a story about the South Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, played with a steely menace by Depp. It is actually a pretty straightforward biopic depicting a point in time when he went from a small-time neighborhood boss to one of the biggest gangsters in Boston. The trick was that a childhood friend, John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) ended up working for the FBI, an organization that at the time, was trying to bring down the Italian mafia. So, the ambitious Connolly naïvely suggests to his bosses the use Bulger as intelligence asset against his rivals and protects him. Bulger, like the wily criminal he is, sees this as an opportunity to force out his enemies and take over their businesses, which he does with gusto under the full sponsorship and protection of the FBI. Connolly then cajoles, obfuscates and even threatens colleagues and criminals alike to help Bulger no matter what, until their mutual downfalls. Another complicating fact is that Bulger's brother, Billy (amazingly played by Benedict Cumberbatch, no hint of his British accent, ever), is Massachusetts' senator and arguably one of the most powerful men in Boston, if not the entire state. The film is ambiguous about whether or not Billy actively helped his brother at any time, which helps the tension.
While Martin Scorsese's multiple Oscar-winning film The Departed was a remake of the great Chinese potboiler, Infernal Affairs, the setting, and in particular, Jack Nicholson's character, was primarily based on Whitey Bulger. The interesting thing to me about Black Mass is that gangster films usually depict both sides of the criminal life, the danger and the glamor. In this case, there is nothing glamorous about Bulger's life, setting. or the man. Depp plays him as a very cool, but angry menace that could snap into murderous intent instantly. Depp's makeup, sunglasses, and generally dour expression throughout the whole film make him look like a living skull, which I am sure was deliberate. At times, it is almost distracting as he goes through the movie more like a coiled snake, ready to strike anybody or anything without a trace of emotion except anger. The movie makes the point that his son and mother's deaths left him an angry shell, but it is almost as if he is in a red haze for the whole movie.
Edgerton is also very good as Agent Connolly, in a role that I think will be overlooked because of its extreme unlikeability. He is so desperate to make a name for himself, so driven to prove that he is not "Southie" gutter trash, that he unleashes this menace on Boston and protects him at all costs. Now, one of the double-edged issues of using criminal sources is that they are criminals and will continue to do criminal things. But they are a necessary evil for the bigger picture. This movie, however, demonstrates a particular problem, how far should you go to protect a source? The movie suggest Bulger strung the FBI along for some time before he gave them any actionable intelligence. But when he did, it was a gold mine that allowed Connolly, and by extension, the FBI, to take credit for major arrests that effectively ended the mafia influence in Boston. But as a result, they got a worse devil in Bulger, who Connolly thought he could control. The movie doesn't explicitly say whether or not this case is why FBI agents are not allowed to work in areas they grew up, it certainly seems plausible this is why. In any case, the movie is good and a fine entry into the gangster genre.
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