Johnny Depp really hasn’t had a great run the past decade or
so, has he? He’s appeared in a number or
Disney-produced effects-driven spectacle flicks wherein he played a variation
on the same eccentric archetype that gained him mainstream popularity in Pirates of the Caribbean, but that has
produced steeply diminishing returns so that even fans of his antics are
starting to find them a bit stale. So it
only makes career sense for Depp to return to his more understated personas of
his earlier cinematic turns, particularly those of Public Enemies and Once Upon
a Time in Mexico that saw him portraying a darker criminal element. And as a return to form, this film is sure to
win a lot of older-school Depp fans over with its dark and serious tone. However, the film itself feels riddled with
missed opportunities.
Depp portrays James “Whitey” Bulger, a notorious Boston
gangster of the 70’s and 80’s. The key
to Bulger’s success, besides a brutal willingness to do any violence necessary
to protect himself and an almost paranoid survival instinct, is that he was
well connected. Most notable of these
connections, at least as the film chooses to portray it, is with FBI agent John
Connelly (Joel Edgerton), a childhood friend whom he feeds information to about
rival gangs. This in turn paves the way
for Whitey to build a virtual monopoly on organized crime in Boston while
having an inside man with the feds protecting him from a full investigation.
The dynamic between Depp’s Whitey and Edgerton’s Connelly is
intriguing, though I feel that an opportunity was lost in choosing to structure
the plot as procedural rather than as an operatic tale of lifelong
friends. It’s clear that Whitey and
Connelly have a history through snippets of dialogue, but we never actually see
it, and such a dimension to the story should really have had a greater impact
on the intense moments when the two men talk to each other as friends on
opposite sides of the law. The focus
instead falls on their mutual manipulation of their relationship to advance
their careers, which is still interesting, but the inevitability of their falls
from grace doesn’t feel as impactful as it could have been had their
relationship actually been explored more than just the most superficial level.
However, none of this makes Black Mass a bad film. What
brings it close to being a bad film is that we rarely get to see much of
Whitey’s criminal activity firsthand, but are only privy to it via
conversations around tables and office desks.
The film’s primary saving grace is Depp, who may not be turning in an
Oscar-worthy performance, but is definitely reminding everyone that he is a
pretty damn good actor. His secret is
that he uses his extensive make-up job as a reliable mask to hide any semblance
of the goofy persona we have come to associate with his face. Instead, Whitey is cold and soft-spoken, and
only ever raises his voice when he is taking necessary action in heartlessly
violent ways, but even then there is never any malice, only a business-like
stare. It’s Depp’s best work in years,
as unimpressive as that statement may be.
Black Mass isn’t
quite the Oscar season opener that many were hoping it would be, and with a
lesser lead it would have been a fairly generically dull dud. However, as a Johnny Depp vehicle, this has
turned into proof that the actor doesn’t quite deserve to be written off just
yet. If you see this film, Depp will
probably be the only piece of it you care about. And that’s probably just fine.
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