Deep, dark, dramatic departure for Johnny Depp

DEPP. Guilt and remorse are not in his seminally evil character’s vocabulary.

As film year 2015 slides into its final quarter, movie buffs are trying to figure out which stellar performances will be singled out as the year’s best. To cite just a few likely nominees for awards, we think that Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro and Jake Gyllenhaal will be among them.

This month, add to that shortlist the seminally evil and even monstrous portrayal of Whitey Bulger by Johnny Depp in “Black Mass,” currently on view in theaters.

Depp’s “deadly” characterization is a deep, dark departure from his relatively fey and even frolicsome performances in cinematic capers like his “Pirates of the Carribean” flicks. His take on his unfeeling and “casually murderous” character is so categorically negative that it sends chills up and down viewers’ spines with its utter lack of scruples. Guilt and remorse are definitely not in this seminally evil man’s vocabulary!

Depp is so clear about his character’s devilish nature that he even uses a “fatherly” scene with his young son in the film to underscore Bulger’s utter nastiness and bleak view of human nature:

Warped principle

Instead of using the homey dinner scene to teach his son sterling principles to live by, he approves of his boy’s having hit a classmate in school—but chides him for doing it with others watching! He should have beaten the heck out of his victim, the “deadly” dad lectures his child—but he should have done it in secret, so he could handily get away with it!

As the film continues to unfold, we realize that this warped “principle” explains in part why the movie’s corroded and corrosive villain got away for so long with all of his rackets and murders in Boston: He left no “fingerprints,” as it were, so investigators couldn’t pin anything on him.

In addition, his brother, Bill, was well-regarded in Boston’s political hierarchy, so he was able to offer him (secret) support. In addition, Bulger was the boyhood friend of some streetwise youths who ended up working for the FBI. One of them, John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) got Bulger to be his top-level informant, who provided him with insider reports that led to the capture of some top gang leaders.

The deal was advantageous to Bulger in two ways: It assured his protection from legal threats and got rid of some of his mafiosi competitors in crime!

The wonderful web of advantages unraveled only when the FBI chief in Boston was replaced by a fearless crime buster who saw through the informant’s protective arrangement!