I thought this movie would be so much better

Rating: 5/10 (14 January 2016)

This movie was more about style than substance and even the style was lacking.
The substance issue comes from the fact that the story was not even close to being fully told. If I think about a similar type movie like Goodfellas I can only say that this movie pales in comparison.
It just left too much out and instead concentrated on just a few intense moments of the main character's life. That doesn't work. For instance, we didn't get any view into Bulger's personal life during all of these events. The FBI agent Connolly was covered a bit but not Bulger. Think of Henry Hill in Goodfellas and how we got a pretty decent view from start to finish.
Perhaps I'm expecting too much as I'm sure it wasn't meant to be a biography but it's a fascinating true story that needed more coverage. It was like eating a bland plate of food and still feeling hungry afterwards.
The neighborhood shots and overall feel of the movie for that time period was done well so I'll give it that. The negatives were a plenty though, in addition to the swiss cheese story. The accents were awful, especially Cumberbatch. Casting an English actor to play an Irish Southie was just wrong on so many levels. The makeup was also quite off for a few of the characters like for Depp and the Jesse Plemons character.
There was quite a bit of buzz and critical acclaim for this movie and I have to think that it was mostly due to the cast. It is indeed an amazing cast but at the end of the day the movie doesn't tell the story so it doesn't matter who's in the cast.