Adapted from the book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill, Black Mass follows the life, times, and '80s reign of terror of James "Whitey" Bulger, a South Boston criminal whose status as a beloved neighborhood institution belies his hair-trigger ruthlessness. When a childhood buddy turned federal agent (Edgerton) enlists his help as an informant to take down the local Italian mob, Whitey seizes the opportunity as license to go increasingly nuclear on anyone in his path. As a rule, whenever there's a scene of someone walking toward their car, prepare to wince.

But director Scott Cooper, whose Out of the Furnace showed a deft touch with both good performers and bad vibes, never really seems to get a tonal handle on his material, slowing the momentum down when it should be vrooming ahead. Too often, the pacing and extended close-ups allow the attention to drift away from the narrative, and instead focus on distractions, like how Johnny Depp's prosthetics appear to have slithered off of him and eaten much of the supporting cast. (A riotous montage of informants just needs Pruneface and Flattop to qualify for inclusion in the Dick Tracy cinematic universe.) Aside from a memorably tense scene around the dinner table, it lacks the queasy, compulsive voyeurism that makes mob movies so addictive. by Andrew Wright