Where did it all go right for Johnny Depp?
A marvelously handsome and certainly sensitive actor whose creative undoing was surely the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise. Those four comic swashbucklers (to date) made him an international star, fabulously wealthy on the Brando/private-island-buying scale.
We didn’t begrudge Depp then, because he’d been so undeniably good in the likes of “Cry-Baby,” “Edward Scissorhands,” and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.” His looseness and lightness made us indie-watchers proud, even if his straight turns in generic Hollywood dramas have mostly been clunkers. (Anyone recall “The Tourist” or “Nick of Time?” Don’t even try.)
At 52, Depp is no longer pretty, and playing balding Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger signals his entry into character work. The problem is that a lot of better actors — some in this picture — have gotten there first. (As a Miami coke weasel, Peter Sarsgaard’s few scenes radiate the energy that Depp only absorbs.)
Depp’s method has always been comic aloofness, most fruitfully employed in Tim Burton confections, which bear no connection to actual life. Bulger’s story, here spanning 1975-95, is entirely earthier and more prosaic. A violent petty hoodlum with no redeeming qualities, Bulger was sheltered by his corrupt FBI handlers until a Boston Globe exposé sent him underground for 16 years. (His San Diego arrest occupies a brief postscript.)
So while Depp is by far the biggest star in the picture, and though he gives a fine, disciplined performance, the adamantine-eyed Bulger is possibly the least interesting character in this listless mess.
Bland, doughy Joel Edgerton plays Connolly, the childhood friend and FBI man who cultivates Bulger as an informant, but you can’t call his downfall a tragedy. Only an idiot would be swayed by clannish Irish Catholic notions of “loyalty” — a word repeated 10,000 times in a leaden script based on a book by Globe reporters.
But Connolly is an idiot, and ditto all Bulger’s flunkies — variously beaten, betrayed, and killed, to no one’s great surprise. None see how they’re disposable parts in Bulger’s FBI-enabled business schemes. Only a few women in this pale, freckled testosterone-fest are skeptical of Bulger, but their scenes can be measured in seconds, not substance (if they’re lucky enough not to be strangled).
Journeyman director Scott Cooper had the very good luck to employ Jeff Bridges in his Oscar-winning turn in “Crazy Heart.” His “Out of the Furnace” featured Christian Bale and some other talent, but was dramatically flat — a copy of a copy of many better movies before.
So it is here: Scorsese already did South Boston gangsters to much better effect in “The Departed” (no masterpiece), and “Black Mass” lacks all the period pep of “American Hustle,” where we actually cared about its delusional cons.
Though there’s one point in the movie’s favor: After this nadir, 2017’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” can only be an improvement.
“Black Mass”
Johnny Depp has brought many characters to life on the big screen; don’t count Boston mobster “Whitey” Bulger as one of them. A hackneyed script and a bland acting job by Depp sink “Black Mass” to the bottom of the sea — with cement shoes.
Rating: R, for brutal violence, language throughout, some sexual references and brief drug use
Showing: Alderwood Mall, Cinebarre Mountlake Terrace, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville, Stanwood Cinemas, Meridian, Sundance Cinemas Seattle, Thornton Place Stadium 14, Woodinville, Cascade Mall
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