Whitey Bulger not happy with ‘Black Mass’: Attorney

For now, if you haven’t had a chance to listen to any of our recent podcasts, they are all here. He was captured in 2011 in Santa Monica, California of all places, a world so different from Southie that he might have been on another planet.

At a glance, you’d be forgiven for assuming Black Mass is more of the same – sporting a silver slick-back and pale prosthetics, Depp looks not at all far from one of Burton’s gothic creations in the role of vicious gangster James “Whitey” Bulger. Bulger wanted more territory and Connolly was looking for another way to make himself famous within the bureau.

I can’t help thinking that Johnny Depp‘s icy performance need more of Jack Nicolson’s colorful interpretation of his Whitey Bulger style character in “The Departed“.

While Black Mass, scripted by Jez Butterworth and Mark Mallouk, does attempt to fill in some details about Bulger’s private life, the film is at its best when it focuses strictly on Bulger as Federal Bureau of Investigation Informant. But Depp never lets us inside Bulger’s head. He remains hidden behind Bulger’s aviator sunglasses, so we’re left with a clever sadist who takes pleasure in the suffering of others, whether he’s casually taunting a frightened FBI agent over a home-cooked meal or pointlessly threatening another agent’s wife in her own bedroom (to what end?).

The lawyer for notorious Boston gangster James (Whitey) Bulger called out the blockbuster Hollywood biopic of his client.

In a 1994 interview with The Times, Craven said: “And the fact that I make horror films, there’s always been a part of me that has always agreed with the worst of my critics, that this is a awful thing to be doing”. It leaves Lindsey Cyr (Dakota Johnson), Marianne Connolly (Julianne Nicholson) and others feeling like two-dimensional caricatures who fulfill story needs instead of actual people.

Brennan later clarified to the Daily News that Bulger has not seen the film, and does not even have an opinion about its existence.

Like Cooper’s previous film, Out Of The Furnace, this is still a slow, methodical film. They do not talk fast.

Depp portrays Bulger as street smart gangster that used money as leverage, and murder as intimidation.

“It’s an irresistible story, a guy at the top of the criminal underworld for 25 years who never got so much as a traffic ticket”, said Berlinger. It shaped him from someone who may have cared for his neighborhood and showed outward loyalty for his long time acquaintances (though not enough not to exploit them), into the hateful and sociopathic criminal he became known for. The Australian actor, who nails a Boston accent, takes over this film with a sense of visible joy.

“Black Mass” is factually flawless but needed more of the conflict that Edgerton alone provides. But Cooper still succeeds in showing another dark underbelly of a community thanks to two formidable performances.