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Created Sep 26, 2015 09:08PM PST • Edited Aug 26, 2022 12:34AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Black Mass is the best movie of the year, the Irish-American Goodfellas and the best dramatic performance of Johnny Depp’s legendary career. Bold statements for sure, yet each can be substantiated.

   • Black Mass dethrones the other perfect movies so far in 2015: Dope and Love & Mercy, each of which overcomes slight flaws. Black Mass is powerful, true, gut wrenching and f-ing flawless.
   • Goodfellas told the true tale of a Mafia crew scoring the biggest robbery in New York history, while Black Mass tells the true tale of an Irish-American organized crime crew becoming kingpins of Boston’s underworld, in no small part by selling out the Mafia. Wicked shit, that.
   • Depp’s Whitey Bulger is the equal of Brando’s Godfather and De Niro’s Goodfella. It’s a uniquely physical performance, yet deeply internal to the point of being biological. Behind lifeless eyes and cadaverous skin, he appears more undead than he did as Barnabas Collins, who was a vampire.

   Black Mass doesn’t unseat Goodfellas atop Organized Crime Movie Valhalla, but nothing ever will.

   2015 however? Black Mass kills.

4. Acting

   Perfect 5.0

   Johnny Depp isn’t physically imposing at first and carries himself oddly, no doubt because that’s how James “Whitey” Bulger carried himself. Then you notice that from the waist down he’s got the solidity of a defensive-back. Add in skin so pale it’s damn near translucent and Depp’s performance is legendary before he opens his mouth. Not that his utterances disappoint. The fatherly advice alone is worth the ticket.

   Benedict Cumberbatch plays Whitey Bulger’s brother Billy Bulger. William Bulger – as he was known on Beacon Hill – was President of the Senate, the second most powerful politician in the Bay State of Mass.

   Joel Edgerton rounds out the top of the cast as John Connolly, a projects-kid who grew up idolizing the Bulger brothers, except he goes straight, following Billy Bulger in a way. Goes FBI when the Bureau is deadset on taking down the Italian Mafia in North Boston, which puts him in position to bring on his boyhood hero Jimmy Bulger as an FBI informant. It ended badly. Connolly’s now serving 40 years.

   Cumberbatch & Edgerton, Brit & Aussie, bantering in Boston accents about Boston sports is impressive.

   Powerhouse Cast

   Cops

   • Kevin Bacon as the FBI mucky-muck in Boston charged with taking down the Mafia
   • Corey Stoll as crusading US Attorney Fred Wyshak
   • Julianne Nicholson as John Connolly’s wife Marianne
   • Adam Scott as Robert Fitzpatrick
   • David Harbour as John Morris
   • Brad Carter as John McIntyre

   Robbers

   • Jesse Plemons is rock-solid as a Winter Hill Gangster. Plemons has fullfilled the great promise he demonstrated as Landry Clark on Friday Night Lights.
   • Dakota Johnson as a dope loving prostitute who opens her mouth once too often
   • Peter Sarsgaard as a low-down Miami player
   • Rory Cochrane as Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi
   • W. Earl Brown as Johnny Martorano

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    Scott Cooper has 14 acting credits on IMDb, but Black Mass is only his third directing credit. The first was Crazy Heart, which means he’s batting near a thousand, while hitting for power.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    18 stunts

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.1

    Bulger didn’t kill for fun, barely drank and was overall the rare disciplined crime lord, but he committed lots of killing, some by his hand directly, much more on his order. Black Mass savagely displays it.

17. Sex Titillating 1.6

18. Violence Savage 4.0

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.8

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

    And then he got away for 15 years, in Santa Monica as it turns out. Before that…

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.3

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0