Black Mass (Scott Cooper, 2015)

The biopic of the Irish-American gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, focusing on his rise to the top of the organised crime heap in Boston in the '70s, aided by the FBI's turning a blind eye to his activities in exchange for supposedly informing on his rivals, is a relentlessly grim and violent tale which derives its rhythm from a "fuck" count that easily hits the hundreds. It's territory that we have seen countless times before in Mafia films, of course, but the factual nature of the story lends it a potency above most of its fictional counterparts and almost allows it to dodge charges of exploitation. This in itself wouldn't be enough, for all the film's ingenuous desire to have us see what machinations allow evil to flourish, but Johnny Depp's portrayal of the sociopathic mobster is a tour de force, easily the best thing he's done in years and a transformation from all his other characters that needs to be seen to be believed, and not just because of ice blue eyed-make-up and voice alterations. You'd be hard pushed to find any villain as terrifying in any horror film; there's never a feeling of security at any point when he's on screen, always liable to break out into violence at the drop of a hat.

6/10