Black Mass, an action film telling the story of notorious criminal James “Whitey” Bulger as played by Johnny Depp, brought in $23.3 million at the box office this weekend. It was the most successful movie featuring Depp since 2013.
Johnny Depp plays this role very well, showcasing both the seriousness and dedication of the role that he unfortunately lacked in his last couple of roles.
The Supporting cast may pale slightly in comparison, but they are nonetheless interesting to watch.
With Joel Edgerton as James’ brother and Benedict Cumberbatch as an FBI agent, this big budget film seemed sure to be a homerun to many, but expectations were not met.
Aside from Depp doing a wonderful job with an unfamiliar role, as he so commonly does, the story was overall bland and seemed recycled.
The whole time watching it, you could not help but think you’ve seen a hundred movies just like it before. All around great acting can only take a movie so far.
The good would be the film’s relentless pacing.
In being fast paced, the film was never dull to watch and managed to be interesting at times.
This was obviously a big budget film whose budget is put to good use in capturing the look of the 1970s and 1980s.
This in turn leads to the cinematography of the film.
In being an Early Oscar contender, one would think that the camera angles and shots would be better then they are in this film. However, they are actually quite bland.
Many Wide Angle shots are used without actually making a difference.
Usually if many are used, then that means they are well done because that’s the directors style.
In the case of this film, it’s to show off the big budget.
In showing off the Big budgeted Production design though, the Establishing and Wide Angle shots start to feel flat well before the film reaches the final act.
The close-up shots at times feel unnecessary and focused too much on centering rather then head room.
Even so, it’s great that a big budget films cost can clearly be seen on screen.
As far as Negatives go, the film suffers from an unfocused story.
The story wants to be told through both flashback mode and present mode and it just never cohesively mixes.
This is mostly due to it feeling all over the place and not feeling thought out properly the way all of the best Gangster films were.
This film struggled in originality and had a murky storyline leaving a lot of things up in the air.
As a whole, Black Mass felt like a knock off of Martin Scorsese’s classic gangster films. It had that 1980s mobster feel to it because of the story it was portraying, but it was very unimpressive.
The final verdict is that it’s fine to watch; maybe even enjoyable for some, but it’s just not worth paying to see in the multiplexes.