Black Mass-terpiece

Rating: 10/10 (14 October 2015)

Black Mass is one of the best movies to hit movie theatres in a long time. It is a gangster style biopic of the famous South Boston crime lord, James "Whitey" Bulger.
This movie essentially has two protagonists, Whitey and John Connolly, a lot of side characters, and no clear antagonist, however there are clearly a lot of guys looking to take down Bulger and Connolly. Essentially the storyline puts a lot of emphasis on the relationship of Bulger and Connolly, one being a crime lord and leader of the Winter Hill Gang, and the other an FBI agent. Both of them use and abuse this relationship as Whitey essentially has immunity, and Connolly looks like an all star agent for the info he gets. In the beginning, the alliance is formed to take down the Italian mafia. Eventually they succeed and Connolly is promoted and praised by the FBI, while Bulger wins the street war he had with the Italians. All is well for both sides, until Bulger's son becomes sick. Following the death of his son, he becomes a heartless, cold- blooded, manipulative crime lord. He kills anybody, and for any reason. Naturally this takes a toll on his fellow gang members, particularly his number two man, Steve Flemmi, who has to helplessly watch as Bulger murders his girlfriends daughter, as he watches and then has to "clean up". Eventually, the bond is found and both are taken down by the FBI.
The acting in this movie was out of this world, and I would not be surprised to see two or three Oscar nods towards the cast, namely Johnny Depp, Dakota Johnson and possibly Benedict Cumberbatch. Johnny Depp has always been my favorite actor, and this is one of his best performances to date. I was extremely surprised to see the casting of Dakota Johnson as Lindsey Cyr, Whitey's girlfriend and mother of his son. I only knew the name because of the 50 shades movie which frankly I had no desire to see. She delivers though, with a breathtakingly emotional performance, and she is believable in every word she says. Joel Edgerton plays John Connolly, and is perfect for the role. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Whitey's brother Billy, a straight edge politician. He again, plays the role to perfection and I believe this is one of his better performances over his already great career. On top of that, Kevin Bacon, Rory Cochrane, Corey Stoll, David Harbour, Adam Scott and Julianne Nicholson are absolutely fantastic and add to the overall enjoyable-ness of this movie.
This movie is a classic and deserves to be treated like one. An absolue must watch for anybody.