OVERVIEW: Keep your enemies close and don’t trust anyone when “Black Mass” arrives on Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD and Digital HD. Three-time Oscar® nominee Johnny Depp (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films) stars as notorious mobster James “Whitey” Bulger in the drama “Black Mass,” directed by Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart”).

“Black Mass” will be available on February 16 on Blu-ray Combo Pack, and includes the film in high definition on Blu-ray disc, a DVD, and a digital version of the movie in Digital HD with UltraViolet*. Fans can also own “Black Mass” via purchase from digital retailers beginning on January 12.

SYNOPSIS: In 1970s South Boston, FBI Agent John Connolly persuades Irish mobster James “Whitey” Bulger to collaborate with the FBI in order to eliminate a common enemy: the Italian mob. The drama tells the story of this unholy alliance, which spiraled out of control, allowing Whitey to evade law enforcement, consolidate power and become one of the most ruthless and dangerous gangsters in Boston history.

FILM REVIEW: The flick opens with an overlay of narration and what appears to be a studying of faces; faces that have been distorted by makeup, contact lenses and the seventies/eighties hairstyles, which all seem to aim to remove any semblance of baggage of the stars’ and their previous roles. And as far as that objective goes, with Johnny Depp, they were entirely successful in immersing audiences into the likeness of Whitey Bulger’s form and appearance. Depp’s transformation was a makeup and performance work of art in its own right. It’s a performance piece that allows audiences to totally engulf themselves into the character without thinking of Depp himself. He [Depp] disappears into the character; lurking irremovably underneath those vampiric blue eyes while the appropriate creepiness of his actions is still a recognizable characteristic of Bulger himself. The rest of the ensemble cast of actors dons the unusual suspect typical mobster personas bringing to life, the essence of the true life crime story.

This however, is with the exception of talented actor Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game, 2014), whom, in my opinion totally destroyed every line he uttered in the Bostonian accent. What a shame, for such a talented actor. It was, literally, quite painful to sit through his scenes. Somehow he seemed to struggle with the basic intonations of the accent and just simply sounded like an idiot. Now, having said this, his acting was still on point, despite his epic fail with his lines.

Besides this, another obvious problem is that Bulger’s story is far too complex and meandering to be contained in a simple two-hour film, especially one that pays homage to most, if not all details of the true-life crime drama.

Nevertheless, the attention to detail is consistent and the recreations of a specific time period are very much convincing and are both skillfully executed visual tactics. This results in the story and its one hundred and twenty-two minute play-time, being boosted to some degree.

On many levels, Black Mass is an examination of a real-world monster, stuck to a true-to-life basis and condemned to a somewhat of an anticlimactic, unsurprising ending, due to the nature of the events that led up to the finality (If two life sentences can be considered a closure) of the story.

Overall, it should be said that stronger films have captured the essence of Whitey Bulger and one has to look no further than Martin Scorsese’s stylistic “The Departed;” staring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson, amongst the many others. However, for those interested, seeking out other perspectives on the legal facts of the story; Joe Berlinger’s 2014’s documentary, “Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger,” is a very detailed viewpoint to be observed. I believe three and a half out of five stars are well deserved here and it is worth the theater visit for the visual dramatics of it all.

BLU-RAY: The film is presented in widescreen in a 2.40:1 aspect ration preserving its theatrical format. The picture is just flawless. Not only the picture looks great in this release, also the sound it is good, a 5.1 Dolby Digital in English that provides a good complement to the picture. It also includes  English, French  and Spanish subtitles.

VIDEO:
Widescreen (2.40:1) 16x9

AUDIO:
English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1/Dolby Digital 2.0, Latin Spanish, Canadian French

Subtitles -English SDH, Latin Spanish, Parisian French

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Blu-ray™ unleashes the power of your HDTV and is the best way to watch movies at home, featuring 6X the picture resolution of DVD, exclusive extras and theater-quality surround sound.

DVD offers the flexibility and convenience of playing movies in more places, both at home and away.

DIGITAL HD with UltraViolet™ lets fans watch movies anywhere on their favorite devices. Users can instantly stream or download.

The Manhunt for Whitey Bulger

Johnny Depp: Becoming Whitey Bulger

Black Mass: Deepest Cover, Darkest Crime