Scott Cooper’s ‘Black Mass’ review: Strictly criminal with Johnny Depp

James ‘Whitey’ Bulger was a criminal through and through. If you grew up in Massachusetts, you knew his name and even while he was on the run, his persona never seemed to leave the city of Boston. He was captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, California of all places, a world so different from Southie that he might have been on another planet. Black Mass, the third film from director Scott Cooper, trims the life of Bulger into a two-hour film that doesn’t feel complete, but this Cliff Notes version of Bulger’s story is enough to make anyone understand how he had a whole section of Boston in his hands.

Bulger, played by Johnny Depp in his first serious attempt to act in years, went from small-time criminal as the leader of the Walter Hill Gang to a crime lord with the help of an unlikely ally: the FBI. Agent and Southie native John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) brought Bulger into the FBI fold to help bring down the Italian mob in Boston’s North End. Bulger wanted more territory and Connolly was looking for another way to make himself famous within the bureau.

Unfortunately for Connolly, he was in over his head as Bulger never knew when to stop. That should have been obvious, but Connolly’s pursuit for fame clouded his judgement. The two dragged each other down and they never saw how the good times would end.

While Black Mass, scripted by Jez Butterworth and Mark Mallouk, does attempt to fill in some details about Bulger’s private life, the film is at its best when it focuses strictly on Bulger as FBI Informant. Any time they go outside the toxic relationship between Bulger and Connolly, it makes the film feel incomplete.

We already know that Sienna Miller’s part as the woman who Bulger was caught with was cut, but it’s impossible not to feel like there was even more left on the chopping block. It leaves Lindsey Cyr (Dakota Johnson), Marianne Connolly (Julianne Nicholson) and others feeling like two-dimensional caricatures who fulfill story needs instead of actual people. Even Bulger’s brother Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch) feel a bit shoehorned in, taking the film away from what its focus should be.

Like Cooper’s previous film, Out Of The Furnace, this is still a slow, methodical film. Each scene isn’t some sweeping failed imitation of a Martin Scorsese movie. These Boston gangsters aren’t the rock and roll criminals of Scorsese’s New York. They keep to themselves and kill themselves with quick, brutal violence. They do not talk fast. Depp’s Bulger isn’t like anything out of other gangster movies because he never comes off like an uncontrolled animal. Sure, he gets angry, but he never doesn’t know what he’s doing.

While Depp’s performance does feel like a throwback to the earlier part of his career when he wasn’t just cashing checks, he winds up losing the film to Joel Edgerton. The Australian actor, who nails a Boston accent, takes over this film with a sense of visible joy. He gets the character of John Connolly right away, trying to show off to every conceivable person. It makes Connolly look petty towards the end, as this performance builds him up so high just so we can see him take an incredible fall.

Black Mass would have been better if Cooper had time to develop some of the secondary characters further or if he dropped more than just Catherine Greig. But Cooper is a filmmaker obsessed with the dark underground of societies and he managed to find the perfect one in Southie. Maybe Bulger’s life will inspire a more expansive TV miniseries, but until that happens, Black Mass will have to do.