Scott Cooper’s version of the mob is closer to Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah than it is to Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas or even Frances Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. The latter two filmmakers cannot help but romanticize the mafia. They throw in a lot of graphic violence and in Godfather II we see the pared-down evil that Michael Corleone has become. Still, film fans tend to prefer films that approach the mob with a nudge, nudge, wink wink. Cooper refused to do that with Black Mass. Rather, he has exposed its icky, unattractive real face. I have to admit I was a bit taken aback by the middling reviews for Black Mass, a film I think is not only Scott Cooper’s best but one of the year’s best overall. It can be put in the same category as Beasts of No Nation — films that don’t feel like making the audience more comfortable in their quest towards ripping off the band-aid slowly. This one’s gonna hurt. And it ain’t gonna be quick.
Johnny Depp is at his best as Whitey Bulger — one of the most manipulative, ruthless killers the Boston mob ever produced. The film presents him as someone with half a heart until finally whatever’s left of his heart is removed. He becomes his own criminal mastermind who believes he can execute people at will — his enemies, people he thinks are his enemies, even someone who might look at him wrong. He is drunk on power and isn’t ready to surrender until he’s lived most of his life and is finally caught, as a frail old man.
Depp’s scenes are creepy but more than that, as Kenneth Turan says, he disappears into the part: “This is an ideal role for Depp because it calls on both his formidable charisma — Bulger’s terrifying presence would chill the blood whenever he walked into a room — and his penchant for hiding in plain sight Using silicone prosthetics, blue contact lenses and a receding hairline wig so elaborate it had to be worked on in shifts 24 hours a day, makeup department head Joel Harlow and his team created a look Depp could disappear into and still be himself. His convincingly psychotic and homicidal Bulger is a Nosferatu look-alike, a bloodless vampire of crime whose performance is the essence of this film.”
Peter Travers says this about Depp, “Ice-cold. Dead eyes. Demonic laugh. His face a mask you can’t read until he’s up in yours. Then run. That’s Johnny Depp giving everything he’s got in a riveting, rattlesnake performance as South Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger in Black Mass.”
And on the other side of things my friend Todd Vanderwerff writes, “Nothing on screen is bad, exactly. It’s all handsomely mounted and strikingly shot. The performances are all good, and the dialogue has a muted grandeur. But you’ll also notice just how unriveted you are, just how little you can bring yourself to care about what’s happening up on screen. In other words, you, too, might find yourself watching Obviously Failed Oscarbait.”
It always makes me laugh a little when people call something “failed” — I guess because nobody knows anything. There are going to be a great many people who view Johnny Depp’s performance as “Oscarbait,” failed or otherwise. But you know who else was accused of that? Last year’s winner, Eddie Redmayne. What a lot of folks think of as “Oscarbait” is, in fact, what Oscar voters might like. Is Depp’s “failed Oscarbait” even worse than “Oscarbait”? I don’t know. But it’s a damn fine performance either way.
Black Mass made me think of The Departed, where the characters are all likable, even the Whitey stand-in, Jack Nicholson. It also made me think of Goodfellas — and again, likable characters and a likable world where we all are in on the joke. Really, though, Black Mass appropriately is a stomach-turner, and a reminder that romanticizing the mob might not be the best way to go when evaluating who they are and what they do.
Depp seems to be the frontrunner for Best Actor, though getting a nod for Best Picture would certainly go along way to push that one through. As with everything Oscar, he would have to be out there kissing babies to pull in a win. Who really wants to do that? Only people who really want to win.
Depp is Oscar-worthy.
Depp was good but this is certainly not a performance that wins awards. Makeup, contact lenses, and a wig doesn’t equal a great performance. Also, the script and Cooper’s directing were awful.
my favorite part of Black Mass was one of the AwardsWatch writers attacking Kris Tapley on Twitter for his supposed bias toward the movie
Also, the scene near the end when Bulger holds the newspaper in the car while sitting with his mob driver Jesse Plemmons and talking about “these people” – reminiscent of the end car scene in Donnie Brasco, only with Depp switching to Pacino’s role. Loved that! Enjoyed the haunting score of the film as well.
Despite Depp’s red carpet remarks, he portrayed Bulger as a demon. Julianne Nicholson is reading “The Exorcist” in bed when Bulger turns the doorknob. When he says “No, it’s not John,” it’s a response to her “I thought it was John,” but it’s also confirmation that John Depp wasn’t there, having been possessed by the character Bulger. As Joe Morgenstern wrote, he has the voice of a Tuvan throat singer , that reminds me of Linda Blair’s voice in Exorcist, particularly in the scene in the beginning where Bulger cusses out Officer Flynn.
The contacts did a lot to block the aliveness always present in Depp’s eyes, but he even brought those ice-cold blue marbles to life in the hospital scene with Dakota Johnson. The film is like a funeral.
Cooper’s movies have all been well made but unable to resonate with me emotionally. I’m with Todd VDW on this, except for the part where he called it “failed OscarBait”. I don’t find this a failure, or Oscar bait necessarily. I think it sits somewhere just above a mediocrity. Depp and Edgerton are both worthy of praise, and Antoinette is right to point out Sarsgaard’s effective, tiny performance as well. I think the reason why this one didn’t hit me very strongly has to do with some of the other films you mentioned, Sasha. The fact that this evokes so many other films and tropes of the genre means the whole thing has a been-there, done-that quality. Which is kind of sad when you think about the fact that The Departed wouldn’t be what it is without the true story of Whitey Bulger. Unfortunately Marty beat these guys to the story and now this story comes off as derivative. It’s like how a John Carter movie might’ve been considered a classic, but Star Wars and then basically every other populist Fantasy/Sci-Fi film that followed it stole from the John Carter novels and set the standard. Now a John Carter movie just looks like a Star Wars ripoff. Early bird gets the accolades, that’s what I always say.
Antoinette, Everest is certainly unaffecting in many ways, but I don’t think we miss the motivations that each of the climbers has for attempting the summit. In fact, the script asks it of them multiple times! Black Mass fails to gaze at Bulger in anything other than a superficial way. Definitely in the eye of the beholder, as you say.
@Benutty See that’s weird. I saw EVEREST in IMAX like you said, and I found that to be unaffecting. I thought this film really got Bulger’s motivations across. It must be one of those eye of the beholder things.
My problem with this film (which I did *not* like) is best illustrated by the second paragraph of this post. I know all of these things to be true of Whitey Bulger (thanks in large part to the excellent and underappreciated doc on him last year)–he’s a “ruthless killer” with “half a heart” and a “criminal mastermind” that is “drunk on power.” But the film does not show this with much care.
The story reads a lot like a Wikipedia entry, a simple display of facts with very few glimpses of what Bulger’s motives, history and personality were truly like. We see the decisions, but get very little of the decision-making. In one scene we see him turn down an offer to work with the FBI, believing it to make him a “rat.” In the next scene we see him work with the FBI, saying but not illustrating that he thinks it’s different from being a “rat.”
All in all, the film is unaffecting, aside from the superb Julianne Nicholson who, if it were a better movie, would be at the top of the Supporting Actress conversation.
Just saw it. Depp was Very Good. I wouldn’t be against him getting an Oscar nod for this. Edgerton (given the year he’s had) should get recognition, too. I also thought Julianne Nicholson did a lot with a little. The movie itself never really BUILT into anything overly special by the end. I enjoyed it as ti went, but then kinda shrugged by the end. Definitely decent, though.
No, Antoinette, Black Mass isn’t out here yet. Not until the 27th of November! Seems like the kind of release strategy employed by studios when they’re expecting awards buzz to build, and it’s showing here at the London Film Festival next month, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a fairly robust Oscar campaign for this, and not just for Johnny.
I don’t know the code for bold btw, but if you want to italicise something, use ’em’ instead of ‘i’.
lol I just reread my post. What’s a ‘tarticle”? lol I need a proofreader but I don’t know anyone who will agree to be paid in bad jokes. And why did someone dislike my post? It was just my opinion on the movie. I didn’t say anything to like or not like. So weird. Anyway, I think most of us saw the same performance. So much menace from such a likable actor.
“”His convincingly psychotic and homicidal Bulger is a Nosferatu look-alike, a bloodless vampire of crime whose performance is the essence of this film.””
I saw this too. Specifically when he was sitting in the car talking to uh.. I forgot who but you definitely think ‘Dracula’. I think the popped collar helped. Depp is no dummy. I’m sure he went undead on purpose.
Paddy, I don’t know if BLACK MASS played in the UK yet. But I really think he deserves something even if the role is short on screen time.
p.s. does code not work? I tried to bold something and it didn’t.
Sarsgaard’s Oscar snubs have been terrible. Boys Don’t Cry, Kinsey, An Education, and now probably this as well. Sigh.
Peter Sarsgaard still doesn’t have an Oscar nomination. The man could show the back of his head for 10 seconds in a movie and still be deserving of a statuette imo, but he could just as well play Nelson Mandela and Stephen Hawking’s autistic lovechild in a David O. Russell film and still not win, so idk. He also has Experimenter coming out later this year, and the festival reviews for that have been very positive.
Hmm… Thanks for posting that link Chris. I think it could. Unfortunately people take a simplistic view of the situation especially if they haven’t seen the movie, and for those personally involved of course they don’t want to hear anything positive about Whitey Bulger. When you play a role, you can’t really judge the character or it won’t be authentic. You have to sort of get in their head, and this is what I actually thought was so fantastic about Johnny’ s performance. He played the evil, but he played him as a person. Clearly his Jimmy Bulger cared about his family, and that’s where the tender heart comes in. But for people who cross him or got in his way, there was no feeling at all. That doesn’t contradict what he said and I believe that’s true of people. (You know, even Hitler loved his dog.) The part about him getting away is a little troublesome. He shouldn’t have said that if he was in campaign mode. But we’ve all watched films were someone is a fugitive from justice and we want them to outrun the police. Even if we know they’ve committed heinous crimes, something in us roots for someone to not get caught.
I really appreciated that this movie treated Whitey Bulger as a person. I think it’s important for people to get the message over and over again that villains aren’t monsters. They’re people just like you and I. If they’re expecting monsters, they won’t see them coming. They won’t see them in the handsome politician with the outstretched hand. They won’t see them in the powerful neighborhood figure who helps a young boy out. Then they’ll be used and abused by someone who acted like a person, instead of a monster.
I hope that doesn’t affect his chances but you’re right. It could.
Anyone here think that Depp’s recent comments about Bulger, and how angry the victims’ families are, might come back to bite him in the ass around the time Academy members start filling out their ballots?
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/18/whitey-bulger-victims-angered-by-johnny-depps-comments-at-black-mass-premiere
“One of the years best overall”??? Did we see the same movie? It wasn’t terrible, but it didn’t suck me
in. Good to see Johnny Depp acting again, but I wanted to see more of what made Bulger tick. The
story and directing were flat. The actor category this year is too full for Johnny Depp.
Loved depps performance. Loved the ensemble. The movie itself left me cold wanting more with unanswered questions. . It could of been an epic biopic but it was just okay. I mean like really nothing here folks I’ve seen better gangster movies. See the movie for depp that is all. His transformation and his acting is something he’s never done before and it’s worth seeing. Will he win. . Not sure. He could be in Rosamund pike territory. . Being hyped up too early only to find just one other performance a notch better by the end of the year. We’ll see. .. on to the next..
This movie was hyped as “Johnny Depp’s return to serious acting,” and it certainly delivers from that standpoint. It’s easily one of the best performances he’s ever given: terrifying, enraged, and yet calm when he needs to be. He reminded me a lot of Steve Carell in Foxcatcher. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing him win for this. The supporting cast is great too, with sensational work from Joel Edgerton (who gives his best performance yet), and fine performances from Peter Sarsgaard, Dakota Johnson, Juno Temple, David Harbour, Julianne Nicholson, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
The movie itself was a disappointment. It just zips through various intriguing subplots (the relationship between the Bulger brothers, Connolly’s home life falling apart, etc.) without any depth. The characters here are all psychologically flat; I never felt I knew what made these characters tick or why I should care about them in the first place. The movie needed a longer running time to flesh out these characters and make them more interesting.
I thought Scott Cooper showed a lot of promise with Crazy Heart (still by far his best movie), but Out of the Furnace was blah and this is only slightly better than that one. Cooper is long overdue for a great script. I hope he gets one soon.
Really no one has commented since me? That was in the middle of the night. Anywho…
Peter Sarsgaard is the epitome of why I have been saying for years that there needs to be a Featured Actor award especially if they’re not going to open up the acting awards to more nominated. He was so fantastic here. Completely unexpected on my part since I think I forgot he was in it before I watched it. So the fact that he’s the first thing I need to mention in this fine film surprises even me. But if there were only a handful of movies this year and category fraud were a capital crime, then he’d be nominated for Best Supporting actor. No doubt. Otherwise, with Joel Edgerton, a co-lead in my book, probably being pushed hard for Supporting, I think Sarsgaard will get unfairly kicked to the curb. We shall see.
I’m probably going to get into SPOILERS so if you haven’t seen it don’t read the rest of my comments on the BLACK MASS tarticles. And I haven’t read the spoilery parts of Sasha’s article or the comments yet. I wanted to get my thoughts out before I forget them.
What can I say? I think Mr. Depp has given the best persona morphing performances I’ve seen since Philip Seymour Hoffman in THE MASTER. Will it be the best of 2015 at the end of the year? Maybe, I can’t say until I’ve seen the rest of this year’s performances but as it stands right now, it’s the best lead actor performance I’ve seen this year by far. His level of turpitude so so believable that it kind of creeped me out about the real person behind the performance. We’ve never seen a Depp like this, not remotely. I think the contact lenses might have actually helped. That familiar glimmer in his eye was gone so even though his eye color became lighter the soul coming through those eyes was black.
I’ll give an example. Al Pacino has the best eyes in movies in my opinion. When I watch SCARFACE I think that character is despicable and repugnant and have always been baffled by people who see that character as a hero. I decided for myself because no matter what, those eyes are eyes you’ve loved before and always will, that crappy character gets a kind of love he doesn’t deserve. The contact lenses removed that problem for Johnny.
So besides his eye balls, he emoted through the make up which seems counterintuitive to playing someone cold but there was a level of evil there that was not just indifferent. It had a sort of passion behind it, a passion I think, to not be fucked with. As a Keyser Soze of South Boston, this character of Jimmy Bulger was willing to do what he thought needed to be done. Why did he need it to be done? It seems like the same old neighborhood situation that sprung up in all the great melting pot cities. Neighborhoods and turf and racism and people treating each other as the Catholic Church taught them too. So I feel that through Depp’s performance I got it. I understood the man and why he was. Great villains don’t get that way on their own. There have been many times when I think of societal ills and I think back to the fact that even Darth Vader grew up in the projects. And speaking of great villains this movie also reminded me of DOWNFALL in the way it allows you to feel for a human being’s situation even if they are one of the worst humans to ever wake the face of the Earth.
So for the movie itself. I think it was handled really well. You could probably do 5 seasons of a series on Whitey Bulger and have enough evil deeds and time in exile to make it interesting. The fact that this story was paired down to a two hour movie and you got everything you needed to know and it didn’t glamorize him and it kept that pace was pretty amazing. It’s not a slow burn, but it’s like a death march I guess, which totally fits this picture. Great work all around.
My thoughts leaving the theater was that it should win Best Ensemble at SAG but then I always forget that that award isn’t really used as a true award for ensemble acting. It’s really that guild’s Best Picture. But honestly, when it’s all said and done it may deserve that too. This film is definitely worthy of Best Picture Oscar but we still have a lot to see to know what’s truly the best. This may be it.
“As with everything Oscar, he would have to be out there kissing babies to pull in a win. Who really wants to do that?”
Everyone hates kissing babies. However, I’m willing to bet that 100% of those babies would be so happy that Johnny Depp kissed them that they’d poop themselves.
I hope to be seeing BLACK MASS later today. Pooping to be determined.
I also commend Scott Cooper for using a restrained and sober tone in “Black Mass.” Its violence is selective yet emphatic; it exists to deepen the character. Yes, one recognizes that Jimmy Bulger is a psychopath, criminal and murderer, but he kills to survive. Undoubtedly, this “Social Darwinist” ideology is a product of his upbringing in South Boston. But he’s also a caring son, father and husband (albeit, up to a point). Unlike most movie “gangsters”, Bulger doesn’t lead an opulent lifestyle and indulge in excessive drinking or drug taking. His sole purpose is to survive. And he survives violently but shrewdly. In the words of Stephen Flemmi, he’s “strictly criminal.”
Really, Johnny Depp’s performance is compelling, although harrowing. He grabs your attention and it’s hard to stop watching Depp be Bulger; the dialect, mannerisms and physicality is distinguishing. He nails it.
The ensemble cast – especially Joel Edgerton – is equally impressive.
One major issue – the other being his upbringing – that the film omits is the divergent Bulger family dynamic. I mean, why did Billy Bulger go to Boston College Law School while Jimmy Bulger went to Alcatraz? The film doesn’t address this question, which in my estimation, is valid and interesting.
i’m sorry i like the phrase failed oscar bait. 🙂
yes,kevin i’m sure plenty think the story in ‘black mass’ was worth telling/but would have been told differently if all involved didn’t they’d have a chance to play in the oscar/awards season discussion ???
for me phrase oscar bait is sort of the equivalent of seeing a phrase like summer blockbuster. meaning it gives you a potential idea what to expect/or maybe better yet not to expect in a film or film season.(no one will see oscar bait and think transformers…)
sasha says…”What a lot of folks think of as “Oscarbait” is, in fact, what Oscar voters might like.” and that’s something that a folk like me thinks is part of the problem.
kevin,even if you thought todd’s desire to win awards bit was excessive/inappropriate. he did list about 50 reasons why the film didn’t work for him. and of course the phrase “oscar bait” is aimed at those mid budget adult-aimed movies.because we can’t aim those words at summer blockbuster season or early year horror films, right ??? 😉
i’m actually thinking using “oscar bait” with scorn is *ok*.especially with this being another year where whatever number of films won’t even have a chance of legitimately being in the discussion/getting a nom. not based the worth of the film but mostly based on not being *trad* enough to count as “oscar bait”.so i think the key is push the boundaries of what’s expected/accepted for an “oscar bait” film. until then that term is deserving of pretty much all the scorn it gets. 🙂
I’m ready for another Johnny Depp Oscar campaign. Let’s do this!
I don’t think it should be up for Best Picture. The script isn’t very good, and the framing device just makes it harder to get into the story. However, here are a few awards it should be up for:
Director – Cooper really does do a pretty good job with it. He doesn’t completely overcome the issues with the writing, but he comes damn close.
Actor – It’s funny; Depp probably has only about 50 minutes of screen time spread out over the two hours. But you watch him, as he grows ever less human, ever more some kind of reptilian wraith, and note how he is the absolute locus of the drama, and you know that this is a lead performance.
Supporting Actor – Joel Edgerton, for his marvelously arrogant portrayal? Peter Sarsgaard, who makes a minsicule role magnetic? Any of the rest of the superior cast? Take your pick.
Supporting Actress – Julianne Nicholson has that scene with Depp which will make your skin crawl. Worth considering.
Cinematography: Magnificent, showing the sick, sad spirit of Whitey’s world, and the fascinating faces (it’s been a while since a film has used faces so well) of those who populate it.
Production Design/Costume Design: Bringing the 70s and 80s to unfussy life.
Makeup & Hairstyling: Seriously?
Score: Another fine score from Tom Holkenborg (he also did the score for Mad Max), infusing the whole film with an aura of misery and dread.
Kane, I’m three for three against Cooper, unfavorably — so maybe it’s one of those “it’s me” cases. I can’t even downright say to skip it. But yeah, the trailer had a downbeat slickness that had me sold; add the great cast and I was kinda hyped for this one.
Boy you really didn’t like Black Mass did you, Bryce? (I ask with sincerity) Is it because you thought it’d be amazing and it fell short?
He cheaply evokes everyone from Marty to Billy to Lumet. I’ll say one thing though…it gave me yet another (and much needed) interesting supporting turn from Cumberbatch. I’m starting to believe he’s not at his best as a leading man…But then I go back Sherlock and *shrugs*
There are few terms in the film community that are as obnoxious and deserving of scorn as “Oscar Bait”. The implication that these multi-million dollar, star-filled movies are made simply to increase the odds of getting a statue is presumptuous to the point of slander. Not to mention it’s almost exclusively directed towards the mid-budget, adult-aimed movies people love to claim the industry doesn’t make anymore.
Ever think movies like Black Mass are made because somebody thought it was a story worth telling? That an actor or director was looking for a challenge? That people were interested in the subject matter?
One of my most important tasks as erratic AD editor is to be sure no guest writers ever say “Oscar bait” in a post unless it’s framed with “scorn quotes”