Review: BLACK MASS (2015)

BLACK MASS comes across as one of those movies engineered in a Hollywood lab to win awards. It's centered around a handsome A-lister whom we're all expected to applaud for willingly appearing less handsome—so brave. It's set in a place with a distinct regional accent so that everyone in the cast can prove to us how great they are. That cast is extensive, with every role, however small, filled by a relatively big name to increase the odds of a Best Supporting statuette. That sounds fine on paper, but not in your ear, when every other scene inevitably devolves into a battle of dueling fake Bostonian accents in which volume seems to be the only deciding factor, "GAWDDAMMIT MARIANNE, WHO BAWT YOU THAT NEW CAH?" All of that being said, the "true" story presented can be interesting, if only during its more intimate moments. Similarly, some of the subtler aspects of the performances, tucked between the "FACK"s and the "OH MY GAWD"s, are often captivating and occasionally downright frightening.

Johnny Depp plays Whitey Bulger (which, coincidentally, is how I refer to my penis), the infamously vicious/weird-looking Southie crime lord. Or at least he's infamously weird-looking now, because for some reason the BLACK MASS makeup department went for a "middle-aged Edward Scissorhands on meth" look that's the focus of every trailer. I looked up the real Whitey and while he's certainly no Clooney, he's definitely playing in a higher league than the bipedal mole-rat the film portrays him as. Whitey is the head of the Winter Hill Gang, a Boston Irish crime syndicate that practically runs Southie. Then there's John Connolly, played by Joel Edgerton, who grew up with Whitey on the streets of Boston, getting into fights and playing "cawps and robbahs." John went on to become a Fed but seems to wish he'd stuck with Whitey and become a career criminal because he breaks the law at every fucking turn. At first it's all for the greater good; he turns a blind eye to Whitey's business and Whitey coughs up information on the North Boston-based Italian mob, Winter Hill's rival and arguably the bigger threat of the two. It's a mutually beneficial "alliance," a word John throws around a lot whenever someone asks why he's having so many barbecues with a well-known murderer.

There's a definite bromantic dimension to their relationship, which I enjoyed. John tells his wife that Whitey once backed him in a schoolyard fight, earning his respect and admiration, "BUT DID HE TAKE YOU TRICK AH TREATIN', JOHN?" Unfortunately for her, John seems to adhere to the "bros before hoes" code, or more specifically, "Whiteys before wifeys," and his marriage begins to fall apart. Eventually it's "mobs before jobs." Witnesses with information tying Whitey to various murders start turning up dead themselves, which is suspicious, considering John was the only one they talked to. This somehow goes unnoticed by the initial DA, who seems like a good dude but also sort of a schmuck. His successor is a pre-fire (or acid, or whatever origin story you want to go with) Harvey Dent type with a hard-on for justice, which is bad news for John. There's a hilarious scene where John tries to win over this new DA with a pair of Red Sox tickets but gets utterly shut down. To make matters worse, the DA starts asking why Whitey's still running around murdering people and John flounders, throwing out nonsensical excuses for being caught off guard like, "I'm not in my office!" as if the answer is on a post-it note in there or something.

Meanwhile Whitey's still running around murdering people, or at least threatening to eat or bury them. Interestingly, while the makeup department tried to mole-ratify Whitey, the writers tried to humanize him, tossing out all sorts of possible explanations for why he's so fucked up. These range from clinical LSD testing during his bid on Alcatraz, to the unexpected loss of his loved ones. The plot structure lends credence to these explanations, with the majority of the really fucked up shit following in wake of a particularly tragic death, whereas before, it seems as if Whitey was mostly just helping old ladies carry their groceries and playing Gin Rummy with his mother. Johnny Depp charms during these nice bad guy bits, which is a real testament to his performance considering he can't rely on his looks. He's played smooth criminals before, the sort who woo girls with a smile and lines like, "I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars, whiskey, and you..." (PUBLIC ENEMIES), but Whitey is different. He may be humanized but he's never romanticized. Even Jason Voorhees loved his mom, though, and the scenes where Whitey isn't beating someone with a wrench or strangling teenage prostitutes help to create a more three-dimensional character. He's just not someone you want to be, which I think distinguishes BLACK MASS from movies like SCARFACE or GOODFELLAS, male power fantasies where well-dressed guys with nice cars are up to their eyeballs in drugs and women.

The Winter Hill Gang are blue-collar criminals who never forget where they came from because they never left. When Whitey comes home from "work," he might as well be coming home from the mill or something. He tosses his keys down, tells his ma he's beat, and tries to go upstairs for a nap, before ultimately being suckered into another game of Gin Rummy. In this scene, there is nothing about his appearance, most accurately described as Springsteen-esque (worn leather jacket, blue jeans, and boots), or general demeanor that betrays his position as a successful mob boss. When the filmmakers want to illustrate that the Winter Hill Gang is prospering, we get a scene where Whitey buys himself a new pair of boots, and that's it—no fancy suits, nice cars, or big houses. There's just a refreshing air of modesty about these guys, which, again, distinguishes BLACK MASS from other gangster movies.

As far as the performances go, they're all fine. Maybe it's partly due to a lackluster script, but few people really stand out. There are some notable exceptions, however, my favorite being Peter Sarsgaard, who seems to be doing an impression of John Malkovich doing an impression of Woody Allen. His character is Brian Halloran, a sweaty, unstable hitman who even makes Whitey's boys, a bunch of hardened killers, uncomfortable. Brian apparently shot his drug dealers in the middle of a Chinese restaurant, in full view of dozens of people, so everyone's a little wary of him. Sarsgaard seems like sort of an eccentric guy in real life, making him a natural fit for these types of roles. Jesse Plemons, who I don't remember ever seeing in anything and first thought was Ike Barinholtz in prosthetic makeup, is also worth mentioning. He plays Kevin Weeks, a bouncer-turned-mobster who impresses Whitey by taking on four unruly drunks, one of whom turns out to be Whitey's cousin—the kid's got balls... Plemons doesn't have too many lines, but his physical performance is scary. I mean, look at this guy. I wouldn't fuck with him.

Then there's Johnny Depp, who's obviously great. You don't need me to tell you that. I don't want to disregard his performance, though, so let me just say that some of his scenes are genuinely hair-raising. Whitey often shifts straight from amiable to menacing, and Depp handles this with ease. Joel Edgerton is good, too. John is an ass-hole and Edgerton really sells it, to the point where I have to remind myself that Edgerton's probably an alright guy in real life, or else I'll end up disliking him for years, like I did Timothy Olyphant after LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD.

I guess my biggest issue with BLACK MASS is that it's just sort of soulless. Aside from the interesting dynamic between John and Whitey, the novelty of a blue-collared Boston Irish mob focus, and the guys I just mentioned, everything else is exactly what you'd expect from this sort of movie. The senior law enforcement officer yells and swears a lot (only in BLACK MASS, everyone yells and swears a lot, so it's especially tedious), women are portrayed as a nagging hindrance to men's ambition, and everyone learns the hard way that crime doesn't pay—except for when it pays for a new pair of boots, but you'll eventually lose them when you go to prison.