CREDIT: WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC.
Black Mass is a movie based on a true story about one of the most infamous criminals in the history of the United States, Jimmy 'Whitey' Bulger.

Back in the ’70s and ’80s, South Boston was under the thrall of one man – Jimmy ‘Whitey’ Bulger. Bulger was one of the most infamous criminals in the history of the United States. The FBI, in exchange for giving them information on the Mafia, helped him out.

Black Mass, full of big names like Johnny Depp and Benedict Cumberbatch, tells the story of Bulger, his accomplices and his man on the inside. When people ask which is better, the devil you know or the one you don’t, this is the movie that tells you the answer.

Every once in a while a movie comes out that’s based on characters that are almost too big for the big screen. They seem almost unbelievable in their realism, far from the one-dimensional beings we’re used to seeing. This is one of those movies. Well-known actors almost seem to become lost in the characters they’re portraying and the results are almost uncomfortable.

As Bulger, Depp transforms into a menacing, quietly threatening creature who calmly goes from helping an old lady to beating the crap out of a former friend. Joel Edgerton, playing FBI agent John Connolly, manages to be both ridiculously over-the-top and still somehow believable. Perhaps the strangest part of the plot is watching this man lie, poorly, over and over again for years. Who knew the FBI was so trusting?

This movie is also notable with how much work it put into making everyone look as much like the people being played as humanly possible. The makeup team did an amazing job of making people who are professionally pretty look like average, or even beaten up and ugly human beings.

There’s one odd point with the casting of the child playing the role of Bulger’s son. Now, this point is extremely nitpicky, but the kid has brown eyes despite having two blue-eyed parents. While putting contacts in children’s eyes is not great, it wouldn’t be hard to give the mom brown eyes for the sake of believability.

The thing is, that one inconsistency is really the only complaint that can be made about the film. Black Mass is a bit gory, but only when the story makes it necessary. The plot and characters are based on real people, so commenting on how long it took for Connolly to be discovered is silly. After all, it really did take a depressingly long amount of time for the FBI to realize they were protecting a murderer.

This is a movie designed to make the audience uncomfortable, to show that every story has many sides and nothing is ever black and white. There are moments where the audience can feel a sorrowful connection to Bulger and others where the only possible feeling is disgust. The important thing, however, is that this is a movie that will make you feel.

In Black Mass, the audience gets treated to a realistic recreation of a true story. Every moment will make you question what it means to be good in a world full of so much evil.