Excellent Boston based story.

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2018)

Loosely based on the Whitey Bulger? story this is a Boston based epic. The Godfather was a NY story and of course on a bigger scale. Boston is a smaller place and its old Irish ethnic neighborhood of South Boston is the setting for this gem. The statehouse sits shining on its hill and the
state govt. is riddled with corruption. Whitey Bulger survived and flourished for years as a gang head and was an FBI snitch. He worked with a FBI agent who was born in his home neighborhood. This agent eventually was convicted on corruption charges and went to prison. Whitey mostly gave info about th local Mafia and several convictions came from this. The Mafia ran Boston from Providence RI and its "offices" were located on Federal Hill. Bulgers brother was the Speaker of the Mass. State House and later the head of the University of Mass. !!! Whitey was a fugitive for many years, was caught and convicted only to be murdered in prison. Probably for being a rat.
This movie has several stories going at once. Undercover police, Corrupt police, honest police, gangsters both Irish and Italian. Local color and Catholic religion role in the area. You have a heavy duty cast here with several important character roles by Sheen,Baldwin, Wahlberg and others. Dicaprio is huge in this and Nicholson is excellent. They dominate the screen. Matt Damon is very bean town but is just not in the same class. For me he lacks something in his roles. He is a major star but of a lesser magnitude of presence. I found the music in this to be overdone and somewhat distracting. My wife felt it was a very good, intense,tension filled movie. She thought the ending was weak, unlikable, not up to par??? At least the corrupt ones got what was coming to them and that does not always happen in reality.