Review: Black Mass, 2015, dir. Scott Cooper

“James “Whitey” Bulger terrorized Boston as the boss of the Winter Hill Gang from the 1970s until the 1990s, went into hiding in 1994, fell into FBI custody in 2011, and now, thanks to filmmaker Scott Cooper, he’s stalking multiplexes in the gangster film Black Mass. For Cooper, the movie marks his third plum gig after Hollywood started inexplicably handing him opportunities to work with great contemporary actors in 2009 with Crazy Heart, and then again in 2013’s Out of the Furnace. For Johnny Depp, playing Bulger himself, the project offers redemption after years’ ridicule accrued from his self-caricaturization in a series of questionable career choices.” (Via Paste Magazine.)