This past weekend saw the commercial release of two solid, old-fashioned genre films, the gangster picture Black Mass and the man-versus-nature saga Everest. Each one is a measured ensemble drama that contains at least a dozen good-to-very-good performances, most of them underplayed, from a roster of respected actors. And each one revolves around a central, attention-grabbing spectacle that deserves to be seen on a big screen. The spectacle of Everest is, of course, Mount Everest, which the characters ascend over the course of the story. The spectacle of Black Mass is Johnny Depp’s scenery-chewing performance as James “Whitey” Bulger, the Boston crime boss who evaded investigation for years because of connections in the FBI.
Black Mass is also an act of teamwork, but in the service of a single performance. Depp’s Bulger is a remarkable creation, involving nearly two dozen credited makeup artists and the cowering of at least that many supporting players. Like James Cagney’s gangster from White Heat, Bulger is a menacing, outsize figure obsessed with power and family values, and he casts a tall shadow over everyone with whom he comes into contact. J.R. Jones notes in his capsule review that the filmmakers don’t try to find a human center for the character—rather, the nuanced supporting performances serve to draw attention to his larger-than-life inhumanity. The many secondary players—among them Benedict Cumberbatch, Joel Edgerton, Jesse Plemons, and W. Earl Brown—take turns glaring and simmering alongside Depp, trying to hold their own against his intense rage. The movie contains more deaths than Everest, yet they lack the human weight one finds in the latter film. Perhaps that’s because Depp, in his monstrousness, is made to seem scarier than death itself.
