If there's a surprise SAG Best Ensemble nominee this year on December 9th, you should fully expect it to be Black Mass. Not that something can be a surprise when you fully expect it but let's not split hairs. Especially not hairs carefully threaded through bald caps.
It's just that it's that kind of movie in all sorts of ways: The kind that opens in September; The kind that has an awards aura and some initial heat but seems to be "over" until everyone remembers that SAG's ever-rotating nominating committee is not centrally located and is thus often a bit behind the general Oscar discussion trajectory and not just because they vote earlier than Oscar voters; The kind of movie wherein every face is at least mildly famous or completely familiar.
Indeed, it's a movie that surely sparked many 'Hey, it's that guy!' conversations among civilians who don't memorize every actor's name like the lot of us do. And not just because Rory Cochrane and W Earl Brown are in it. Even the smallest parts are filled with actors who can and do or should fill much bigger roles in other entertainments: Corey Stoll, Peter Sarsgaard, Juno Temple, Adam Scott, David Harbour, Julianne Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, or actors of-the-moment who Hollywood casting directors seem constitutionally incapable of living without whether they fit the project or not: Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dakota Johnson, Jesse Plemons.
You might have guessed, listening to the latest podcast, that I didn't much like it. We all have our blind spots or, rather, aversion spots when it comes to movie subgenres. One of mine is movies about tough guys wherein every scene revolves around guys doing machismo dances of intimidation, threats, and general one-upmanship (paired with physical interpretations of the same - i.e. shooting, brawls, torture). I find that kind of movie incredibly dull and stale from decades of similar films unless the filmmaking is really snappy and borderline genius (think Scorsese at his best), or unless the script and acting are so strong that repeated scenes made up of similar tough guy/tough talk elements don't feel repetitive because they're so fucking dynamic (think Tarantino at his best).
Thus Black Mass was a slog for this cinephile, it's 122 minutes so repetitive that when things really started to cook right toward the end (i.e. the vise closing on the characters) it was much too little dynamism much too late.
Nevertheless in the interest of being generous, here are the 6 performance beats that thrilled me the most therein.
01. Julianne Nicholson's condescending half laugh/half wretching sound at her suck-up husband in the kitchen while he's trying to entertain his guests
02. Peter Sarsgaard's "I'm a dead man!" sweating. It's so big it sails right over 'over the top' and plunges headfirst into 'drowning in an ocean of it'. It's as if his entire junkie essence is both a suicide wish and a revulsion about the suicide wish. Peter's been a rejuvenated actor of late. Here's hoping for a major role / movie soon.
03. The way David Harbour tries to convince his frozen worry face to fall into frattish dismissive laughter in the "family recipe" scene but just can't (from fear) and won't (from rage) at the very last second.
04. Juno Temple's dimwitted approval-seeking regurgitation of her conversations with the police. Yes... yes... she plays this kind of character way too often but she's good at it. Or as Nick recently joked...
"Hi, this is Juno Temple's agent. We're wondering if you could use a sexually corrupted childwoman in your movie?" "No, not in Suffragette."
— Nick Davis (@NicksFlickPicks) October 5, 2015
"Hi, I represent Juno Temple. We're curious, does this 'bridge' feature any sexually corrupted childwomen, or just spies?" "No, spies only."
— Nick Davis (@NicksFlickPicks) October 5, 2015
05. The way Julianne Nicholson doesn't pander to audience gratification with inner toughness in the aftermath of her grotesquely violating run-in with Johnny Depp's gangster but instead crumples defeated and shaking. Nicholson is perpetually undervalued -- Black Mass doesn't seem remotely interested in her -- and this needs to stop. She's obviously just hitting her peak as an actress (see also: Masters of Sex, August: Osage County)
05. Corey Stoll's complete absence of levity as the new hard ass boy scout boss who has zero time for your good ol boy back scratching 'not strictly legal' bullshit... so pissy and righteous in his first scene it's like he's already fired the entire staff in his head before walking into the office. Hell, before he even signed the offer letter for the position weeks before his entrance.
Johnny Depp is perfectly ...fine in the movie. But the Best Actor buzz seems awfully generous since it's a performance with no surprises; this is exactly how any capable actor would play a sociopathic gangster and you'd expect a little more for an actor so reknowned for his creativity and charisma. It doesn't help that he's wearing all that distracting makeup since this role was supposed to rescue him from the cartoon characters. More troubling, narratively, is that not for a single second do Benedict Cumberbatch and Depp successfully convince you that they're brothers, let alone deeply mysteriously connected brothers despite their differences, in their scenes together.