Underwhelming

Rating: 6/10 (25 September 2015)

I saw this movie with a bunch of my college friends (we are all in college). They all loved it. And I will say that Johnny Depp and Joel Edgerton were fantastic in this movie, however, the movie lacked the qualities of a great mob movie. I have always been fascinated by the mob genre. I have watched the sopranos, goodfellas, donnie brasco, the godfather, and basically all mob movies under the sun. I feel like Johnny Depp and Edgerton are great at portraying their characters, but I feel like no other character was developed at all. Benedict Cumberbatch is one of the great actors of today, but Cooper just wasted his talents on a weak supporting role.
I was also looking forward to see the inner workings of how Whitey Bulger came to power. I understand that he was a silent, cold-blooded mobster that used the FBI to become to be one of the most influential criminals in Boston. However, other then a few choking scenes and murder scenes, I would have liked Cooper to show more of the specifics of Bulger's rise to power. Also, we rarely see Bulger interacting in the everyday mob-life, but we always see how he handles unique, problematic situations all-the time. I would have liked to have seen one normal day in Whitey Bulger's life given the movie was only was 2 hours long.
Overall, a decent movie with great acting by Depp and Edgerton, but lacking on some of the finer details of a classic mob movie.
P.S. I could not take Ben Wyatt serious in that mustache.