Few of my reviews have such short and not-so-sweet titles. However, when you’ve just seen a movie like Black Mass this stuff happens naturally. There are few, if any, reasons I would recommend watching a movie like Black Mass. After a drought filled month with nothing remotely good to beckon one to the cinemas, the combination of Johnny Depp and Benedict Cumberbatch seemed promising. However, the dull and dreary literal biography that is Black Mass has only deepened the disappointment and one wishes that the drought had simply continued instead.
Have you heard about a guy named James ‘Whitey’ Bulger? If you have, then maybe this movie could be of some interest to you. For the rest of us, you’ll wonder who this guy is and why was it anybody’s worth to make this film throughout the runtime of 2 hours and 2 minutes – since the director has chosen to tell us about it right at the very end. I am not even concerned about ‘giving anything away’ because this entire movie doesn’t have any stuff like that – and yet they managed to drag it to its agonizing 2 hours and 2 minutes
Don’t be surprised if you are heavily tempted to leave the theater mid-way at the interval stage. I would urge you to resist that temptation though, since after having endured what you do in a boring and conversation filled first half, where you’ll look at the watch at least a dozen times, post interval things at least start getting somewhat interesting. There are 3-4 sequences which will hold your attention and most of it is in the second half – the rest of it struggles to leave any mark.
I am not sure what director Scott Cooper was going for with his story build up around Bulger. I have seen Bollywood movies that have created more personality and allure around a gangster protagonist than this one does. Despite the big names, the casting seems like a miscast. Depp is heavily made up to look like Bulger which makes one wonder why it had to be Depp in the first place – its not like it’s a majorly complex character that only he could’ve pulled off. Cumberbatch has such a minor role that I am not sure why he accepted in the first place. Joel Edgerton, does a decent job as John Connolly who in my view, is the other main character in this story
And…well, that’s it. I have nothing more to tell you. If you can’t resist temptation the two line description of the movie on IMDB summarizes exactly what you’ll get to watch over 2 hours. I normally wouldn’t advise you to sneak a peek at it, but in this case I’ll make an exception. I think its time well saved.
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