Who wrote the Black Mass "anti-gangster" analysis?

“It’s not what you do—it’s when and where you do it, and who you do it to or with,” growls gangster James “Whitey” Bulger early on in Black Mass, Scott Cooper’s film about the notorious Boston crime kingpin. In this particular instance, Bulger is imparting jackleg gangland wisdom to his six-year-old son while his girlfriend looks on with worry. But this line also rings true for the film itself; it’s not just about what Black Mass is that makes it special, but also who and when.

In this case, there are two big “whos” in play. The first, obviously, is Whitey Bulger, who spent over a decade on America’s Most Wanted list. Bulger may have been a key reference point for the Jack Nicholson character in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed as well as the dynamic between a Massachusetts congressman and his ne’er-do-well brother on the underrated Showtime series Brotherhood, but Black Mass marks the first time that the infamous Boston ganglord has been portrayed on-screen and referred to by name.

The second “who” is the man Scott Cooper charged with bringing Bulger to volatile life: Johnny Depp, whose modus operandi for dress-up serves him well by lending a bizarre and somehow believable countenance to the role. At first glance, with his searing ice-chip eyes, a thinning pate and a paunch that belies the sort of brute malice that boils within him, Depp’s Bulger is an unlikely figure to be so intimidating. Yet he struts around Boston like a debauched king, delivering both beatdowns and bonhomie with shocking regularity.

Based off of the bestselling account by reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, Black Mass could have been set up to be the Southie response to Goodfellas, and indeed, Bulger’s life was rife with all sorts of anecdotes and events that would’ve warranted a film twice this one’s length. However, Cooper wisely—if unambiguously—scales it back to the bare necessities. He angles his focus less on Bulger’s background and more on a specific period: namely, when Bulger was approached by a childhood friend-turned-FBI agent to become a Federal informant.

That childhood friend is John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), an ambitious FBI agent whose boyhood was firmly in the shadow of Whitey’s legend. Connolly sees an opportunity to use Bulger as a tool for his own gain, so he makes a deal with the devil: if Bulger acts as an informant against Boston’s entrenched mob scene, the Bureau will look the other way. Connolly views it as a necessary evil to remove the Mafia’s influence, but he overlooks—or worse, ignores—the fallout from such an act: Bulger will have free rein over the streets of Boston.

The strength of Goodfellas was how Scorsese humanized Henry Hill as well as showing that as glitzy and glamorous as the gangster life was, it belied a seedy underbelly filled with blood and lead. Cooper goes the opposite route; he portrays Bulger’s world as brutal and uncompromising as the man himself. This isn’t an exploration of the allure of criminal life; Black Mass shows that Bulger was a cancer, and that left unchecked, he spread fast, metastasizing right into the heart of the city he ruled and the federal agencies he exploited.

Black Mass is being touted as a return to form for Depp, whose career has been notably uninspired for quite some time. At his best, Depp is a mercurial performer, but if he lacks inspiration, his act gets dull fast. Here, under Cooper’s guidance, Depp is galvanized more than I think I’ve ever seen him. In a moment that hearkens back to Joe Pesci’s legendary “Funny how?” scene from Goodfellas, Depp’s Bulger—while having dinner with some of his FBI contacts—vacillates from twinkle-eyed cheer to dead-eyed and foreboding severity and back again with breakneck speed. It’s moments like these that make me wonder what the hell Depp has been doing all this time, frittering away this potential in soulless Tim Burton joints.

Standing well against Depp is Edgerton, whose star is on a meteoric rise of late. His portrayal of Connolly’s determination as it gives way to desperation is superb to watch. Watching him attempt to keep the lid on a pot overflowing with blood and bullets had my guts in knots at times. The pressure of trying to—unsuccessfully—corral Bulger while placating his superiors takes a personal toll on Connolly, as his wife (Julianne Nicholson, always dependable) starts to fray at the edges when she sees her husband start to become less like a cop and more like a gangster.

Cooper populates the rest of the ensemble with a cadre of stolid character actors to give Black Mass its flavor. Bulger’s crew consists of Stevie Flemmi (Rory Cochrane), John Martorano (W. Earl Brown) and Kevin Weeks (Jesse Plemons, carving out one hell of a career for himself). At various points, these three gentlemen act as guides into Bulger’s criminal element, as well as windows into his degenerating psyche. We are introduced to Jimmy’s brother, who also happens to be a well-respected state senator, is played by a simpering, snakelike Benedict Cumberbatch. An assortment of one-scene wonders—here’s Peter Sarsgaard as a jittery snitch, there’s Corey Stoll as a tenacious D.A.—breeze through the film in welcome bursts.

A few of the more entertaining and terrifying anecdotes from Lehr and O’Neill’s book find their way into Cooper’s film: a couple of daylight whackings of “loose ends” keep the blood pumping, and there’s one chill-inducing scene (amped up by Junkie XL’s palpitating score) of a bare-handed strangling that reminds us forcefully how utterly merciless Whitey Bulger is. But Cooper knows enough to realize that it’s easy to get bogged down in the minutiae, so he keeps Black Mass moving at a clip. He also knows how to make us feel comfortable in a foreign landscape, even in America’s own backyard. But above all, his skill with actors is in full force here. Black Mass pulls no punches; instead, it gives you an extra kick in the nuts for good measure.