Black Mass

2015 Directed by Scott Cooper

Keep your enemies close.

The true story of Whitey Bulger, the brother of a state senator and the most infamous violent criminal in the history of South Boston, who became an FBI informant to take down a Mafia family invading his turf.

Johnny Depp Joel Edgerton Benedict Cumberbatch Dakota Johnson Kevin Bacon Peter Sarsgaard Jesse Plemons David Harbour Adam Scott Corey Stoll Julianne Nicholson W. Earl Brown Bill Camp Juno Temple Mark Mahoney Brad Carter Scott G. Anderson Lonnie Farmer Mary Klug Erica McDermott Luke Ryan Owen Burke Lewis D. Wheeler Billy Meleady Jamie Donnelly David De Beck Gary Galone Rory Cochrane James Russo Show All…

Alternative Titles

Pacto Criminal, Black Mass - Das Syndikat, 极黑势力, Pacto criminal

drama crime

122 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by matt lynch ★★½ 4

Scott Cooper is evidently very good at letting famous actors do whatever they want in classy but largely generic films. Here Johnny Depp gives yet another idiosyncratic, physical performance as a charismatic psycho, and who the fuck cares?
Review by SilentDawn ★★½ 8

45/100
Black Mass, even in spite of its flourishing mediocrity and uneventful storyline, is worth seeing just to witness Johnny Depp transform himself into a dizzying vampire of vicious brutality and horrifying EEEEEVILLLNESSSSSS. His cackling persona of devious stares and violent outbursts can only be described as Joe Pesci with all the humor sucked out of his detailed mannerisms. It works in a strangely unique way, and Depp's demonic presence is the glue holding this entire kindergarten Gangster project together.
Montages, slow-motion, assorted pop tunes, and operatic showcases of violence all are within Black Mass, as well as the sly Boston-Accent bickering and "FUCK YOU!" "NO, FUCK YOUUUU!" arguments of typical Gangster ventures. Usually, tropes like this weave perfectly into…
Review by ghostdinosaur ½ 9

Early on in the film a bunch of gangsters are hanging out in a car and one of them starts to tell a story about how he heard porn stars in Los Angeles eat a bunch of celery right before they perform. He gets interrupted and never explains why they do this. I was more interested in hearing the end of that story than anything that happened over the next 100 minutes of movie.
Review by Gonzo ★★★★ 5

▶ 2015 Movie Rankings
"Strictly criminal."
Welcome back, Mr. Depp.
We missed ya. We fucking missed ya.
Johnny Depp comes out of retirement and shoots straight to the front of the Oscar race with one of his most impressive performances yet.
That Whitey Bulger is one interesting individual. A complex criminal that's both charismatic ("Oh, look, he likes helping the elderly." "Aw, he loves his kid and his family.") and downright terrifying. ("Oh no, he's giving that dude the talk. Bang. Dead." "Fuck, he's doing it again. Headshot. Dead." "Oh shit, he... Yup, he just strangled that girl. Dead.") A no-good, scheming, distrustful, trigger-happy, psychopathic son of a bitch.
Ensemble cast is pretty strong across the board. Out of the…
Review by Evan ★★★½ 7

Johnny Depp might still be covered in make-up for this role, but at least he's not running around like a babbling idiot. Instead he plays a very dark, heartless, and brutal man and he knocks it out of the park. Black Mass is filled with fantastic performances, Johnny Depp and Joel Edgerton being the standouts.
My biggest issue with this film is that it's a bit hollow and slow moving. While, I was always interested in what was going on, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't bored some of the time.
Review by Matt Singer ★★½ 1

Jawny Depp’s pretty good, but the othuh actors could have done a bettuh jawb with the Bahston accents.
HEY LETTUHBAWXED READ TIFF '15 REVIEW #10: screencrush.com/black-mass-review/
Review by CinemaClown ★★★ 4

Bolstered by a truly magnificent performance from the actor who has a penchant for playing larger-than-life characters, Black Mass is another entry into last year's long list of biopics and although it paints a gripping portrait of a notorious crime boss, it's also marred by its generic plot & uneventful storytelling.
Based on a true story, Black Mass chronicles the criminal life of infamous Irish-American mobster Whitey "Jimmy" Bulger and focuses on the years when he became an informant for FBI for his own self-interests and assisted them in eliminating the rival gang while carrying out his crime business under federal protection at the same time.
Directed by Scott Cooper, there isn't really anything worth mentioning about his latest movie other…
Review by Esteban Gonzalez ★★★ 2

“If nobody sees it, it didn't happen.”
Black Mass is Scott Cooper’s follow up to his dark thriller, Out of the Furnace. This gangster film centers on the true story of one of Boston’s most wanted criminals, Whitey Bulger, an Irish mobster who served as an informant for the FBI against the Italian Mafia for many years, during which time he used the special treatment to get away with committing several gruesome crimes of his own and rise to the top. The film is extremely slow paced and it focuses on the small details of Whitey’s crime life, but it is also a breath of fresh air for its realistic portrayal of the gritty criminal life without sensationalizing these gangsters.…
Review by Ryan Sutton ★★★★★ 4

“I thought it was a family secret.”
I’m stunned. In complete awe. How do people not love this film? I genuinely don’t get it. I watched Black Mass for the first time today, knowing full well the mediocre reviews going in. During the movie, I kept racking my brain trying to understand why it’s not praised. I searched far and wide for flaws, thinking that the next scene has to be the “game changer” but that scene never came. In fact, if I’m being completely honest, Black Mass is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Period. Johnny Depp . . . JOHNNY FUCKING DEPP. He is Whitey Bulgar as far as I’m concerned. He was absolutely unrecognizable in…
Review by Filmspotting ★½ 9

A movie exactly as generically ominous and boring as its title. Cooper and Depp have all the moves down cold but no soul.
Rory Cochrane though.
Review by sprizzle ★★½ 4

In American cinema, when you make a gangster movie, you better make a damn good one. You've got to complete with some of the greatest American movies ever made. When you come out with a movie that's "just good", it's going to go unnoticed. That's the problem with Black Mass. It's just good.
It uses way too many tired techniques to be notable. It feels like a ripoff of about ten different movies, 5 of those coming from Scorsese. There's more than one way to make a movie, I don't understand why these directors think we need to see it exactly the same way every time. This, plus the repetitious nature of the plot make this two hour movie seem…
Review by Travis ★★

Not Italian, not mafia, strictly mob gang related
Depp is a top notch bad guy but this movie is off-brand lucky charms

Recent reviews

Review by grijzestan ★★½

Bad casting all the way. They should’ve cast Ed Harris instead of doing a weird make-up job on Depp. The Blue-est lenses can’t make an Irishman. Don’t try being ‘70’s Scorsese. Slow pace, no tension. Snore.
Review by InfamousGent ★★★★

The makeup is a bit much but Depp’s performance is the real deal.
Review by Ryan Sutton ★★★★★ 4

“I thought it was a family secret.”
I’m stunned. In complete awe. How do people not love this film? I genuinely don’t get it. I watched Black Mass for the first time today, knowing full well the mediocre reviews going in. During the movie, I kept racking my brain trying to understand why it’s not praised. I searched far and wide for flaws, thinking that the next scene has to be the “game changer” but that scene never came. In fact, if I’m being completely honest, Black Mass is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Period. Johnny Depp . . . JOHNNY FUCKING DEPP. He is Whitey Bulgar as far as I’m concerned. He was absolutely unrecognizable in…
Review by FilmFan1971 ★★★★

This review originally appeared on Wow247 (RIP).
Directed by Scott Cooper (Out of the Furnace), this based-on-a-true-story crime drama centres on Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, who rose to power in the '70s and '80s and subsequently spent 16 years on the run before his eventual capture in 2011. As such, it's an enjoyable, if occasionally derivative drama that's elevated by a career-best performance from Johnny Depp.
Adapted from a book by two Boston journalists, the film begins with former members of Bulger's Winter Hill Gang giving state's evidence testimony, with the bulk of the story taking place in flashback. The focus of the story is FBI agent and longtime Bulger family friend John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), who comes to…
Review by Tavis ★★

Wtf, I love Johnny but this was no good. Could have been a great movie. Maybe after a rewatch I could say better but I left theatre sad...
Review by David Aitken ★★½

James Bulger origin story
Review by Jon Lewak ★★★

My full review of Black Mass is at: jontheblogcentric.org/2015/12/29/movie-review-black-mass/
Review by HombreSinLugar ★★★½

No es Scorsese claro está, pero esta bien. Quiero destacar las actuaciones de Peter Sarsgaard y Juno Temple en la película, ya que aunque hayan tenido muy poco tiempo, han sido muy buenas por no decir las mejores.
Review by Sam 🏴‍☠️ ★★★

An otherwise mediocre film, if there wasn’t Johnny Depp‘s superb performance which clearly elevates the whole movie to a different level. But still, of all the great Boston-based crime dramas („The Departed“ and „The Town“) my least favorite.
Review by YepitsHoward ★★★

No..... No. You said to me this is a family secret...
Review by Isaac Elliott ★★½

This film took a very interesting premise and a star studded cast and somehow made one of the most forgettable and uninteresting films I have watched.
Review by ajmckay24 ★★★½

Black Mass is an interesting film. It’s a crime drama full of stars but carried by one performance, Johnny Depp. As Whitey Bulger, Depp completely loses himself in a full transformation. He’s terrifying, intimidating and incredibly compelling. It’s some of the best work he’s done. The rest of the cast contains some impressive names, Jesse Plemons, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dakota Johnson, Joel Edgerton, Kevin Bacon, Peter Skarsgard, David Harbour, Corey Stoll and Adam Scott. All of which do solid work but none of them reach Depp’s level. The biggest thing holding the film back for me is the storytelling. There a few compelling characters that would provide good stories, but the focus seems fragmented between them. Overall, it’s a good movie with a great performance.