Black Mass
Dir. Scott Cooper
Yet again, Johnny Depp is keeping the make-up department busy with his latest role - not as a pirate, or a vampire, or a Native American with a dead bird on his head, but as Boston crime lord Whitey Bulger, whose ties with the FBI made him nearly untouchable for decades (until he was eventually caught...at age 81). The story of such a notorious figure in US crime is ripe ground for a quality gangster flick, but unfortunately, Black Mass is a black hole of entertainment. It treads the same exact ground as dozens of other "banality of evil" movies and TV shows, including The Departed which was loosely based on Bulger (it's a losing competition to pit Depp and Cooper against Nicholson and Scorsese). Black Mass drones on and on until it's over, employing cliches and cringeworthy Boston accents along the way. Despite its solid central performance, I'd say you could ship this movie straight to Alcatraz.
