Review of Black Mass (2015) by Mary A — 14 Oct 2015

Two years ago, I was one of the few people who left Scott Cooper's "Out of the Furnace" completely moved. It floored me. I thought it did a great job of showing just the right amount of brutality without ever going overboard, so that when the violence hit, it hit hard. It's more important what you choose not to show and what you don't act on than what you do. Unfortunately, most people walked away from that film thinking "It was okay, but that great cast got together and that's the best they could do?".

That is basically the same reaction I had to Cooper's latest film "Black Mass." To be fair, I am not one who is fascinated by the mob, like many people are. I'm not sure if it is because I've seen so many movies about it or what, it just does not grab my attention like it does for so many others. I thought this might be different because it isn't a cool, glamorous mob with Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro or Jack Nicholson. This mob is full of fat, balding, Irishmen, and to the film's credit, it at least tries to distance itself from those other famous film mobs by really trying to get down to the dirt and grit, but that also becomes one of the film's major flaws: we can only watch so many brutal murders before we become numb to them.

Late in the film Whitey Bulger (Depp) is strangling yet another man who has told the FBI incriminating information about him and it should be a gruesome, powerful scene but it just isn't, because I've seen him murder plenty of people leading up to this moment. Had that been the opening I would have been transfixed with it, much like the brutal opening to "Out of the Furnace." Less is more. Don't show me every detail or else there's nothing for me to imagine. I know precisely just how brutal each murder is, I'm never left wondering "man, I wonder what he did to that guy...".

Overall, everyone gives solid performances. At least B+ or A- work from everyone involved. Depp obviously brings it in the biggest way in what I consider to be the second-billed role behind Edgerton's, John Connolly. Most of the other actors aren't given a lot to do and whenever it seems like they're about to, we go back to Depp, trying his absolute best to never show an emotion other than angry and serious.

There is one great scene full of suspense, without giving anything away, but it's the only scene where you see Depp get to play intensity more quietly and it is far and away the best scene in the film, and believe it or not, you know the entire time he is not going to murder the other person in the scene, but it still has more weight than anything else in the movie.

Is Depp great? Yes by comparison to the last 15 years of his work, but I wanted more depth. Trust me, he's as creepy as can be and to be truly honest, you forget that it's him and that's not just due to the makeup team, it's also due to the work of a phenomenal actor. The first 40 minutes of this movie get you really excited but after a while you start to wonder, "is something going to change? Or do we just watch mob shenanigans for a long time before the eventual downfall?".

Don't get me wrong. "Black Mass" entertains from start to finish. It just doesn't have much to say. IT's a relatively interesting story about a few guys I have a really hard time believing were portrayed accurately. You won't walk away thinking your money was stolen, but you won't walk away with that feeling like you saw a new classic, and that's fine. "Black Mass" is a solid movie that you can watch once and then maybe a few years down the road, you can watch again and say yeah "this is solid.".

Serious subject matter doesn't mean every character needs to take themselves so seriously.