A return to form for Depp

Rating: 8/10 (21 September 2015)

First things first, I am biased towards crime-drama films, I have grown up on Godfather, Goodfellas and Once upon a time in America and they have had a huge influence on my liking for crime movies. So my approach towards Black Mass was already a bit biased to begin with and how did Black Mass fare? It did great, i really liked it. I always note the level of accuracy in a film and this film nails the 70s-80's era, the hairstyles, the suits, the cars and the Boston accent (though Benedict Cumberbatch's Boston accent was a bit distracting). I must say the director Scott Cooper really studied all the Scorsese master crime films before approaching Black Mass and you can see the influence in the shots and sometimes even in the script (has some shades of Scorsese's The Departed, the voice-over narration in a crime film is a style made famous by Scorsese in Goodfellas and a scene is almost ripped straight off from Goodfellas). The film feels very authentic and it did an excellent job of making the audience understand it's backstory and aspects which a non Boston person (like me) could understand and appreciate like the turf war between Irish and the Italian Mafia and their natural hate and dislike for each other.
The lead actors are terrific, Johnny Depp showed some of his old acting chops which I thought he may have lost since he became a pirate; but he is in full form here, truly menacing and if you are in a room with his James "Whitey" Bulger, you will be too scared to make an eye contact with him and will try to slip out of the room asap, very intimidating. Joel Edgerton plays the second lead, he is the liaison between Bulger and the FBI so that Bulger gets protection and he gets to nail the Italian mafia, a common enemy of both the FBI and Bulger's Irish Winter Hill Gang. Edgerton's Agent Connolly plays a very interesting character and shows that it's not necessary that a criminal is out there committing crimes, sometimes the criminal is in the system manipulating it to suit his needs. The politics in the FBI maybe the dark horse aspect of this film that only crime drama veterans may appreciate, all the talking and manipulation (aka boring stuff to casual movie goer). Rest of the cast is good and do their roles well but nothing home to write about.
There are some scenes which were a tad bit over the top and some logical loopholes arose but trust me I did some light reading about the film after watching it and yes it is factually correct. It's an imperfect world sometimes even criminals get lucky and catch a break even after taking totally unnecessary risks or murder jobs. Lastly, I made the Scorsese comparison earlier but I don't think this film will have the longevity of Scorsese films, this film has a great script and some good scenes but the shots are never visually rich like Scorsese's, you still remember everyone's death scene from The Departed but Black Mass will not enjoy that long lasting appeal despite having an arguably better story. I can't wait to see the final cut of the film when it will be released, the original movie was nearly half an hour longer.