Review: Black Mass (UK Cert 15)

In the 1970s, James 'Whitey' Bulger was one of the most powerful and dangerous mobsters in America. He controlled almost all organised crime in South Boston and, in an attempt to eliminate competition from the Italian mob, became an informant for an old friend, John Connolly, who was working for the FBI. This forms the central crux of Black Mass, a gritty, brutal crime drama directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out Of The Furnace) and starring Johnny Depp as Bulger.

Depp has, for a long time, played very broad characters or even caricatures, hidden under tics and quirks. His performance as Bulger is a very different beast altogether. Bulger is a controlling, vicious, violent psychopath, utterly ruthless and not afraid to get his hands dirty. He barely raises his voice above a gravelly rumble but is utterly in control. There's a scene at a dinner table where Bulger goes from convivial to utterly sinister and then back to cheerful bonhomie, to the shock and discomfort of everyone else round the table. It's one of Depp's strongest performances of the last decade.

Joel Edgerton plays FBI agent Connolly, a Southie boy done good. Initially an honest man, his own morals become compromised in his dealings with Bulger. In some ways, it's reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed and Connolly becomes more and more frantic to keep things from falling apart and to keep his boss (a steely Kevin Bacon) from pulling the plug. It's a decent performance by Edgerton, albeit lacking something of the spark that Depp has.

Benedict Cumberbatch pulls off a convincing Boston accent to play Senator William 'Billy' Bulger, Whitey's brother and old friend of Connolly. The senator turns a blind eye to his brother's criminal ways and keeps his two worlds separate. David Harbour and Corey Stoll impress as a corrupt FBI agent and a bulldog US attorney respectively, with Stoll only introduced late in the day as the net starts to close on Bulger. 

As you can imagine, this is a vividly macho film with the female characters getting particularly short-changed; Dakota Johnson makes an early appearance as the mother of Bulger's son, but soon gets sidelined, while Julianne Nicholson has a few potent scenes as Connolly's wife Marianne, managing to imbue what could have just been a cardboard cut-out nagging wife with a bit of life. Juno Temple's screen time is pretty short and only seems included to show just how ruthless Bulger could be. This is very much a man's world.

It's an unrelentingly violent film too, with brains being splattered against windshields and unfortunate snitches garrotted left, right and centre. There's no glamour to the gore, it's not beautifully or artistically shot (the same can be said for the whole film actually; it's a gritty, downlow kind of film). It's a fact of the lives that Bulger and his associates lead. 

It's a truly engrossing film, which grabs you from the get-go. It's a long film as well (over 2 hours) but doesn't feel like it. A gripping and absorbing crime thriller.

Black Mass is on general release from 25th November.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Tez

Out of the Furnace (Cert: 15)

Every year, around the awards season, a film gets released with the kind of A-list actors normally reeled off if you were at the pub and were asked the question, “What cast would you have in your film?” With the exception of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, it’s unlikely you will see a film in 2014 with as much acting clout as Out of the Furnace. Writer/director Scott Cooper’s follow-up to his Oscar winning debut, Crazy Heart, is another character study set in the back-roads of America, Cooper once again focusing on people who are out-of-place in the country that is supposed to be their home.

Out of the Furnace has a top-rate cast that struggles to fit all of the names on the film’s poster: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker and Zoe Saldana – all on fine form. Most critics have been praising Bale and Affleck, and deservedly so, as brothers both struggling to make ends meet, frustrated with the lives they are forced to live, but taking out their anger in different ways. Bale, famous for pushing the envelope in films such as The Machinist and The Fighter gives a toned-down, understated performance as Russell Baze, speaking softly and permanently exhausted. Affleck, on the other hand, as Rodney, is the other extreme, his rage constantly threatening to rise to the surface; he is uptight and always anxious.

Special mention has to go to Woody Harrelson, who has built a career on playing villains and anti-heroes with all-sorts going on inside their heads, but with Out of the Furnace he gives one of his very best performances as small-time drug dealer Harlan DeGroat. The film opens by introducing our antagonist, and for almost a minute Harrelson is silent, just sitting there, staring. This is an uncomfortable scene to watch, DeGroat bringing to mind a spring trap getting tighter and tighter. We know he is going to do something to the poor woman sat in his car; you’re just waiting for it to happen. DeGroat thinks he is untouchable, king of his own little empire, but he is more white trash than Don Corleone.

Saldana, while not getting much in the way of screen time, stands head-and-shoulders with the rest of the cast, being given the film’s most moving scene as she tells former boyfriend Bale that she is pregnant with Forest Whitaker’s child, the two of them reflecting on what they could have had if life had turned out differently. It is an honest, gentle scene, admirably played down by both actors.

The problem with Out of the Furnace is Cooper’s script. It’s hard to say what the film is about as the narrative goes in one direction before wildly swerving off somewhere else. Bale is sent to prison for drink driving, his girlfriend Saldana leaving him. Affleck has been chewed up and spit out by the U.S. army, living in limbo and wondering what to do with the rest of his life, descending into the dingy world of bare knuckle fighting. This is followed by the second half, where Bale takes the law into his own hands and wages a one man war against Harrelson. The film feels like a series of sub-plots rather than one narrative that sees its protagonists change in some way. It’s a respectable two hours, but very rarely do you feel engaged with the two lead actors. This should be a weighty, emotionally draining watch, but because Out of the Furnace takes so long to become a vigilante film, trying its hand at different narratives and not spending enough time on any of them, it is nowhere near as sharp or elaborate as Cooper intended.

Out of the Furnace is an angry film, focusing on those living below the poverty line, left behind by the rest of America. Everything that Cooper highlights, small industrial towns lined with boarded up streets, where the only hope is to leave for somewhere else, is all valid, but Out of the Furnace’s message feels more like a murmur than a blood spitting rant. Cooper’s latest is worth seeing for the performances alone but, due to a muddled script, is nowhere near as gristly or heartfelt as it deserves to be.

3 out of 5

Matt