Flick Chick Review ‘Black Mass’

Flick Chick here once again in the pursuit of truth, justice and keeping you from spending your hard earned money on movies that don’t make the grade! Last night I grabbed my bulletproof vest and headed into the Bangor Mall Cinemas to see ‘Black Mass’

This is a biography, crime, drama that runs just 2 hours. The film is R for brutal violence, language throughout, some sexual references and brief drug use and stars Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kevin Bacon
Summary:

This movie is based on the true story of famous mobster Whitey Bulger. He grew up in south Boston and although his brother would grow to be a Senator and his good friend an FBI agent Whitey would pursue a life of crime. In a bid to eliminate the other mafias in town with whom he was in a turf war he agrees to be a FBI informant for his friend who is then drawn into his mafia world with the man who would later be called the most infamous violent criminal in the history of South Boston.

Review:

I have always found the lifestyles and careers of mobster interesting stories on TV and I had great hopes for this film taking a deeper look into their characters.  Unfortunately, Black Mass turned out to be a kind of flat line dissemination of information with a few violent interludes. Johnny Depp and his fellow actors do a decent job portraying Bulger and his associates but without any depth of what made they choose their paths versus Whitey who turned into a murderous monster. And on a side note the blue contacts Depp was wearing made him look creepy and were distracting and did not help his characterization in my opinion. Overall with a lack of drawing the audience in it seemed long and flat to me. I’ve been more drawn in by TV accounts of his life. So on a scale of 1 – 10, I am giving ‘Black Mass’ a 5.