Today a trailer for Black Mass dropped and it looks gritty. The film stars a whole slew of dudes like Benedict Cumberbatch, Corey Stoll, Joel Egerton, Kevin Bacon and Adam Scott but mainly it stars Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger, a famed gangster who’s recently been getting a lot of attention. Another big selling point aside from that cast is Depp’s receding hairline which, between you and me, he’s probably had in real life for the past decade. You can tell because in films he’s always wearing a wig and in real life photos, he’s always wearing a hat. At least he covers up rather than wigging up like John Travolta. Anyway….
The trailer looks good but I’ll be honest, it also looks like a paint-by-numbers Boston/Irish gangster film in the vein of The Departed or The Town. Plus, there’s some bad facial makeup going on. But hey, I dig director Scott Cooper’s films (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace) as he’s good at character development so, we shall see.
