Black Mass (2015)

Friday was payday for my wife. She was happy to get a little extra cash so she asked if I wanted to go out on a date. I said, “Let me think…a date with a beautiful woman. Yeah, I think I want to do that.” She said that she drove by the theater and saw that Black Mass had just been released. We agreed that a cinematic adventure would definitely be in the evening’s plans.

Black Mass is the story of James “Whitey” Bulger. He was the head of the Irish mob in Boston for years. I had read a few books about Jimmy and the Winter Hill Gang so I knew the players and what their fates were. That didn’t stop me from thoroughly loving this movie. It was so well performed that I forgot to think about who was who and what had happened. I’ve been a casual fan of Johnny Depp for quite some time. I’ve seen all of his movie but I never watched 21 Jump Street when it was on TV. I didn’t usually go specifically to see him, but he was always involved in projects that I wanted to see. In Black Mass, Johnny Depp disappeared into the character of Whitey Bulger. It proved to me without a doubt that he has a wide acting range. Top notch, JD.

The story tells the ins and outs of the relationship between the Irish mob and the FBI. It was a tangled mess to say the least. Since I did know the stories, the film could have been another hour and a half long and I still would have been enthralled by it. As it is, I know Hollywood likes to keep people’s short attention spans in check so it told the meat of the story and not much else. That’s okay. I was glad to have seen it even if it wasn’t long enough. It’s a good movie to go see even if you don’t know who Jimmy Bulger is.

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