*Writer Note*

As a movie lover I thought very hard on what I wanted to rate the movie Black Mass, and I eventually came to a conclusion of a 7.5/10.

Black Mass is intense, gripping, chilling and absorbing. It is always difficult to take a true story of a man’s life that evolves over decades and capture the essence of the man in a two hour film but director Scott Cooper does an excellent job in achieving just that.

The film had some wonderful actors such as Kevin Bacon, Joel Edgerton, Dakota Johnson and Benedict Cumberbatch. Each of their roles suit each actor perfectly. All of these actors gave their own take on how they wanted to portray their characters.

I truly believe the real star of Black Mass was Johnny Depp. To me for years, Depp has been lacking and has not been showing his full potential. He has awed me in films such as Edward Scissorhands, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Blow.

Depp won me over in this film and I believe without him, this film would have gone from a 7.5 to a 4. Depp stated in an interview that he wanted to sit down with the real James Bulger to get a feel of what Bulger was like because he wanted to play Bulger to the best of his ability.

Many people think of Bulger to be a man of pure evil. Depp on the other hand did not. Depp stated in an interview with theguardian.com that “Bulger inhabited a world of violence, but also had a softer side to him. There’s a kind heart in there. There’s a cold heart in there. There’s a man who loves. There’s a man who cries. There’s a lot to the man.”

Unfortunately, Bulger declined to have a sit down with Depp. Despite not meeting Bulger, Depp portrayed him with a character that exhibited characteristics that describe this former mob boss.

I can see Johnny Depp receiving an Oscar nomination for his spectacular performance at the next Academy Awards. Depp is definitely back in the game in the leading role department.

Now why did I not give this movie a perfect 10. First off, the movie starts off really slow. There are some good fatalities but they were not executed. Second, the movie is based off of a book and it is almost exactly the same as the book, but I feel they should have juiced up the movie to make it top the book off.

And lastly, it’s hard to impress me when it comes to Gangster/Mafia movies, especially when my two favorite gangster movies are The Departed and Goodfellas. Because of the two titles I’ve listed as my favorites above, new mafia movies have their work cut out for them in order to captivate, impress and ultimately find a place on my list.

Watch it in theatres or Redbox it?: Definitely watch it in theatres