Black Mass - Wigs won’t cut it

I know there’s a fair school of through that says Johnny Depp’s star has waned over recent years, but I was surprised that I’d never heard of ‘Black Mass’ until it was on sale on DVD.  It sounded pretty good – a true life tale of how a gangster turned Government informer, plus it had a stellar cast including Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon and that creepy guy out of ‘Breaking Bad’ who looks a bit like Matt Damon.  However, when I started watching it, I soon realised why it never really set the Box Office alight.

It’s dull.  That’s it.  This is going to be a pretty short review.  There’s really not that much I can say about it.  It’s just boring.  I suppose I’ve watched a lot of these gritty true-life gangster/snitch films in my time, therefore I couldn’t see anything new here.  However, I really do think that anyone fresh to the genre would find this a little slow and hard going.  It may have a decent cast, but that almost becomes a problem.  The film bounces around from actor to actor and from present to past and feels completely disjointed, like each scene doesn’t really relate to the one that’s gone before.  Then, because every scene doesn’t feel like it should follow the one before, the whole film comes across like one big series of mini stories where the actors are never allowed to show their considerable talents because none of them are ever allowed the time to do so.

Whatever the public mood is towards Johnny Depp right now, he’s always been one of my favourite actors and I’m certain he has plenty of good roles ahead of him.  Just like I know he loves to immerse himself into whatever part he’s playing and is more than happy to do whatever it takes to ‘look the part.’ As with ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ he’s almost unrecognisable as the main character, sporting a balding hair piece and more than a few added wrinkles.  However, it takes more than a good set of prosthetics to make a movie and, unfortunately, his passion for his craft doesn’t save the film.

It’s not terrible, but for the cast that’s been assembled for this production you’d be expecting something along the lines of ‘Goodfellas.’ Sadly, the only two words that come to mind here are ‘boring’ and ‘forgettable’ (sorry, Johnny).

4/10 You can watch this film while you're doing the ironing (you'll still get the general gist of it)