After seeing Black Mass, I was left with a couple things: disappointment, surprise that the movie had ended, and confusion on how the acting good be so good and yet have a very dull movie.

The trailers for this movie were very misleading, and although Johnny Depp’s acting met the expectations of the trailer, the plot absolutely did not. This movie had a large lack of emotion. Characters’ intents were never really explained and you didn’t really know why characters were making the decisions that they made. The movie had no life and none of the characters brought in much emotion. This movie could have been far better if it had focused on the family dynamic between Whitey Bulger and his brother and son. Instead they focused on police research and uninteresting dialogue.

There were some good scenes and interesting uses of the camera, but nothing good enough to completely elevate the movie. Like I said the acting was great and Johnny Depp was everything that he needed to be and more. It’s not the actors’ fault that they couldn’t bring much emotions to the scenes, the writers just didn’t give them enough to work with.

Another problem is that the movie spanned over ten years but wasn’t given enough time to explain itself. The thing that they focused on just weren’t that interesting and like I said there wasn’t enough focus on the family. There wasn’t a fulfilling ending at all and it felt very abrupt. The movie showed a lot of what had happened but not why it happened. You were never really able to get inside Whitey Bulger’s head. There also weren’t any characters that you could connect with. Pretty much everyone is a bad guy and the good guys are never focused on or given time to develop. I never cared what happened to ninety percent of the characters and no one ever really changed.

At the end of the day Black Mass isn’t a terrible movie but seeing its potential really turns it into a letdown. If you’re a Johnny Depp fan you should still check this one out for its acting but other than that there really isn’t any draw.

Thanks for reading.