The movies have a habit of making the criminal underworld seem appealing, with its charismatic inhabitants idolised as men born into a life of racketeering and shallow graves.
Casting Johnny Depp as one of America’s most infamously violent gangsters might seem a bit of a gamble, then. Here’s an actor who’s had a string of high-profile flops playing larger-than-life characters covered in prosthetic make-up, being asked to play, well, essentially the same thing.
Scott “Crazy Heart” Cooper’s portrayal of the defining part of Jimmy “Whitey” Bulger’s south Boston legacy reigns in his lead actor, dials down the drama, filters the colour, presenting “Black Mass” as something of a drab, regimented, by-the-book account.
It’s fair to say that Jimmy Bulger had his connections, what with being brother to Billy, a politician (Benedict Cumberbatch), and childhood friends with a high ranking FBI officer, John Connolly (Joel Edgerton).
Indeed Connolly helped him evade conviction throughout his ascension to the top, mainly by becoming what was termed an “informant”, but something Bulger defined as “business”, and which in reality was just a cover to drip-feed red herrings to the law or stitch up rival gangs.
As with most crime related biopics, his activities put a tremendous strain on his personal life, especially girlfriend Lyndsey Cyr (Dakota Johnson) who’s worried about the influence his straight-talking life lessons will have on their son. Subsequent twin tragedies go some way to explaining the pale-eyed killer’s descent into further inhumanity and eventual arrest.
