A deep, dark Black Mass

Rating: 8/10 (22 September 2015)

Black Mass is dark. Interesting name really. I quite like the title. I know it is based on a book, but still – really catching and for me just the name invokes mystery and deep thinking. The movie is based on the infamous Boston gangster Jimmy "Whitey" Bulger of the notorious Winter Hill Gang. Most of the film takes place between the 70-90s. The reason to see the film: Johnny Depp. Reasons not to see the film: not a super-duper structured narrative some things just happen (like life). And it is quite dark (also like life). But if you would rather have a Nolan-esque/rainbows film, this is not it.
MILD SPOILERS: Black Mass is a pulsating look into the life of a cold-blooded gangster. Most of the film, Whitey seems to be of the same demeanor, but worsening at the death of his son and the death of his mother. At the end of the film, Whitey's closest associate is asked by the FBI in seemingly current year about their relationship, and he remarks, "It was strictly criminal." What an intriguing way to describe a human relationship. I guess that is the mobster way of saying it was strictly business.
Johnny Depp was truly incredible in this film. Overall, I like Depp. I think he is an incredible versatile actor (despite personally rebelling from watching any more Pirates of the Caribbean Films after the second film maybe third). I read somewhere that it took over 20 hours to apply the makeup to make Depp look the ghoulish part of Whitey.
In a recent interview, Depp got some flack for "humanizing" Whitey too much while he was trying to prepare for the role. Depp stated that Whitey, had a cold heart, but a caring heart. Some of the victim's surviving family members of the real life mobster were quite incensed. But, should anyone have to humanize anyone else. I'm sure even the world's worst gangsters, dictators, and serial killers had fears, loves, dreams, and they wet the bed when they were little. People are human (full stop). Even gangsters. What lead to the creation of such a heinous murderer, which was Whitey Bulger? Who knows.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes (which I used in my second feature film), "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956