Scott Cooper appears to have made Black Mass under the assumption that his work was half done the moment he jotted the words "Boston-set crime drama" on a notepad.

| Jun 14, 2017

Depp sticks out like a sore thumb in an otherwise bland crime drama. And when the film isn't distracting, it's mostly just plain boring.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 22, 2017

Yes, it's a relief to see Depp playing a real character again, not another one of his circus freaks -- I just wish he'd been given a better film to operate in.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 12, 2016

A a well-crafted, well-acted, and competently executed movie that you've seen many, many times before.

| May 3, 2016

Depp has never been short on menace, and he is so unpleasant as Bulger that his usual gangster charm never kicks in, leaving the audience cold.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 1, 2015

Packs a nasty gangland punch, but lacks the Corleone clout necessary to back up its much-discussed blood-and-honour themes.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 29, 2015

A compendium of dull gangster shenanigans which shirks hard reality at every turn.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 23, 2015

Compelling and powerfully acted, with just enough wrinkles to avoid the ghosts of gangster movies past.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 22, 2015

Black Mass... can't figure Whitey out. Developments that seem important come and go without their mark on the man being clear.

Full Review | Nov 10, 2015

[Depp] is evidently having a fine time - and if his aim is to make our flesh creep, from his perspective at least Black Mass must be reckoned a success.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 7, 2015

It's all handsomely mounted and strikingly shot. The performances are all good, and the dialogue has a muted grandeur. But you'll also notice just how unriveted you are, just how little you can bring yourself to care.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 23, 2015

How much longer must we subscribe, as moviegoers, to the sentimental brotherhood of violence?

| Sep 21, 2015

It's good to see Depp back to form. Shame about the movie he's in, though.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Sep 20, 2015

Scott Cooper's self-serious style has been oppressive in movies like Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace, but this time he actually has real material to take seriously.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 20, 2015

The role is Depp's best in many years, and a welcome respite from the parade of prancing pseudo-villains-Mortdecai, the Wolf, Barnabas Collins, Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka-to which he has devoted far too much of his career.

| Sep 19, 2015

Depp's performance as Bulger is as strong, and as energized, as anything he's done on screen for years.

| Sep 18, 2015

It's as if the spirit of a psychopath like Bulger resists the camera. Or maybe the movie isn't imaginative enough to penetrate his shell.

| Sep 18, 2015

But Scott Cooper's Black Mass, based on the book of the same name by first-rate Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill, is a misfire.

| Sep 18, 2015

[Depp] holds the screen as pure malevolence.

| Original Score: B- | Sep 18, 2015

The acting here is much stronger and more soulful than I would have expected, and not only from Depp.

| Sep 18, 2015