A hot blooded gangster film about a cold blooded bastard.

Rating: 6/10 (10 September 2015)

Black Mass tells the story of the infamous alliance between the Boston FBI and the city's bastard son, James "Whitey" Bulger. In telling a story that has stained Boston and the FBI for all of eternity and telling with precision, guts and, most of all, honesty, it solidifies Black Mass as one of the best films of the year thus far. Starring an unrecognizable Johnny Depp and a scene stealing Joel Edgerton, the film blasts off on screen, making you want more and more as it play out. Just like in typical gangster fashion, there are long speeches, there is brutal violence and there is not one moment where it ever lets up. While the film itself doesn't break any new ground regarding gangster films, it is still a more than welcomed addition to the lot of them and may even become iconic but it is a bit too early to tell. Johnny Depp is absolutely fantastic as Bulger. Depp brings a level of performance to the table that we haven't seen in years. He can be charming, cunning, ruthless and, at times, so cold blooded you question if this man has any humanity. For an actor to be able to pull off this kind of role, it takes a specific mind set and Johnny Depp nails it. Between scenes of him murdering anyone who threatens his empire, we see Bulger, the family man. The man that would kill for nothing being brought to his knees as he is told his son has died. There is humanity in Depp's performance as Bulger, there's just so many layers to peel back in order to get to it. I can't rave about Depp enough. The man is mind blowingly fantastic in this film and no words I can put down can justify the level of perfection he brings to this film. Joel Edgerton plays John Connolly, who ends up stealing the show in many scenes. Edgerton has become a force to be reckoned with and a pool of untapped talent that has finally been able to roar to the surface with August's The Gift (for which he wrote, directed and starred) and now with Black Mass. I sense an Oscar nomination for his work in Black Mass. He is THAT good. To be able to act opposite of Depp's career best performance and hold your own, that is saying something in and of itself. Benedict Cumberbatch, Dakota Johnson, Kevin Bacon, Jesse Plemons, Julianne Nicholson, Rory Cochrane and everyone else in this cast is pitch perfect. Even Dakota Johnson is good but then again, my expectations for her was that it was going to be hard to take her seriously but she ended up delivering a fantastic performance as Lyndsay Cyr. Scott Cooper has directed some pretty fantastic films, Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace. But Black Mass is his masterpiece thus far. Cooper created a film drenched in the styles of the 70s cinema. It acts a love letter to films like The Godfather, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Mean Streets and even Serpico. Cooper's direction skyrockets what could have easily been a bomb into something very organic and very special. The cinematography is absolutely fantastic in this film, covering Boston never like a character but as a playground for Whitey. It is engrossing and engaging throughout and never overwhelming like Cooper's Out of the Furnace cinematography was. Every component to this film screams for perfection and with a director like Scott Cooper and a cast headed by an Oscar worthy Johnny Depp, the film gets just that...perfection.