“Black Mass” would make a great radio drama. As a film, it is terrible.
The 2015 film, directed by Scott Cooper, is based on the true story of Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger (played by Johnny Depp).
The film begins in 1975, when FBI agent John Connolly (played by Joel Edgerton) offers Bulger an opportunity to partner with the FBI to take down a rival gang in a different part of Boston.
Connolly was friends with Bulger growing up in South Boston. Because of his personal relationship with Bulger, Connolly, along with Bulger’s brother, state senator William “Billy” Bulger (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), protects him from scrutiny throughout the 1980s, even after Bulger’s usefulness to the FBI dwindles.
The film portrays the effect this illegal cover-up has on Connolly, and how Bulger abused his status as an FBI informant to build his criminal empire throughout Boston.
The true story of “Black Mass” offers everything needed to make a good crime movie: personal drama, double-crosses, and action.
The actors cast for the main roles are all well-respected and capable.
However, Scott Cooper, like so many other Hollywood directors and film school graduates, fails to understand how to properly use film as a medium.
Akira Kurosawa, the great master of Japanese cinema, often noted that although films have qualities similar to those of other media, film is a medium unto itself.
“For me, filmmaking combines everything,” Kurosawa said in an interview. “That’s the reason I’ve made cinema my life’s work. In films, painting and literature, theater and music come together. But a film is still a film.”
As a visual, but nonstatic, medium, a good film does not rely on good dialogue. Instead, the best films utilize beautiful movement much like good novels utilize beautiful language.
Great directors, like Kurosawa and his students, use scenery—everything from crowds to the weather—to instill a scene with a particular emotion. For instance, reaction shots with a large crowd increase the emotional impact of an event. Or, elemental aspects, such as fire or rain in the background of a scene, add a certain spark to a scene that would otherwise be dull.
Cooper fails to apply that lesson to “Black Mass.” Most of the shots in the movie are close-ups of characters talking. Even when he uses different shots, often the only moving elements of a scene are the actors.
But, in an even broader sense, “Black Mass” lacks movement. The characters’ arcs are mostly told to the audience, not shown to us.
For instance, Depp’s character supposedly undergoes deep transitions as the result of tragic events in his life. After the death of his son, for instance, characters frequently say that he grows increasingly violent. However, Cooper shows little of these alleged changes.
Depp plays an excellent psychopath. But he plays a psychopath without anything resembling a character arc.
Cumberbatch plays an excellent corrupt, hypocritical politician. But, he plays a politician without anything resembling a character arc.
Perhaps this style would pass for a serialized radio drama in the 1930s or ’40s.
However, film is something different. The potential of this story as a cinematic experience went unrealized.
Similar stories have been better told by other directors. If you are in the mood for a crime movie set in Boston, go watch Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed.” Do not waste your time watching a radio drama.
