“Every one in the south was in awe of Jimmy.”

James 'Whitey' Bulger was one of America's most wanted, a criminal of distinction who literally got away with murder. It helped that he had a willing friend in the FBI, and that his well-connected brother was a local senator. The wheel of fortune was good to Bulger, until it wasn't. His spectacular rise and inevitable fall is the backbone of this noteworthy drama.

Stepping into James Gray / Mark Wahlberg territory, Black Mass has a similar, defined feel of classic '70's gangster cinema: dark, brutal, unforgiving. Based on the book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill, Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) has crafted a pleasingly atmospheric 'true story' from a satisfying script by Jez Butterworth (Fair Game) and Mark Mallouk. This isn't so much about the journey – most of that is familiar from generations of gangster films and is signalled from the get-go – this is about emotional resonance, gritty texture, character study: The Sopranos in Boston.

Cooper is the kind of director actor's love to be directed by: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Christian Bale and Casey Affleck have worked with him on his debut and sophomore films. They've now been joined by Benedict Cumberpatch (The Imitation Game), Joel Edgerton (The Gift) and Jonny 'don't kill my dogs' Depp (The Tourist). It marks him as a director to watch. He's also the kind of director who restores elegance to a performance, and makes good actors great.

He even has the power to salvage Depp's career, a man who was in terminal danger of being swallowed whole by Captain Jack. As Jimmy Bulger, he oozes a quiet, vicious thuggery that leaves an oily stain wherever he appears. Punctuated by moments of mad brutality, his is the kind of character you're happy to leave behind in the cinema, but while you're in the cinema, he's utterly, totally, completely mesmerising. The strength of the performance should get Oscar buzz, with Depp's hair-do doing him no harm (the Academy especially loves an actor acting ugly).

As Bulger's 'career' takes off and a messiah complex takes over, he makes more than a few enemies, people who, as we know from testimonials in the opening scenes, are more than happy to turn witness against him. Slowly, the noose tightens until Bulger has nowhere to move and it's in this contraction that Black Mass is at its best. There's a heaviness to the proceedings that won't find favour with action-junkies tethered to Marvel's 'blam-kapow' approach to filmmaking. It will fascinate those with a taste for measured, intelligent story-telling where the journey proves more satisfying than the payoff.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Events Cinema, George St, Sydney, on 2 October 2015