"Black Mass" Historical Review

                The film Black Mass stars Johnny Depp and depicts James “Whitey” Bulger, from the time of his return from his nine year stretch at Alcatraz, up until he left Boston and eventually arrested.

                The plot of the film stuck pretty closely to its historical origins. Whitey came out of Alcatraz, and then went back out onto the street. He made an alliance with the FBI via John Connolly, a friend from his youth, in order to take out the Angiulo Brothers. By helping the FBI, the FBI would take care of the Angiulo Brothers who controlled North Boston and were challenging Whitey. In return, Whitey basically had the freedom to do whatever he pleased. However, once Whitey’s rivals were out of the picture, Whitey started racking up money. He started paying off John Connolly and others, gaining power and growing. However, John Connolly became corrupt and the FBI started to notice. Eventually, they went after Connolly and Whitey. Along the way they also got Stephen Flemmi, who was very close to Whitey.

                The very beginning of the movie showed Kevin Weeks talking to a FBI agent to try and get benefits from talking about Whitey. Kevin was a bouncer outside of one of Whitey’s bars, who Whitey noticed and brought up into the higher ranks. Later in the movie, it showed that Stephen Flemmi also talked to the FBI in regards to Whitey. Both of these instances, according to the movie, happened after Whitey escaped from Boston.

                At the time that the FBI got Connolly and Flemmi, someone tipped off Whitey about the FBI going to arrest him. Due to that tip, he escaped Boston.

                However, Whitey was caught. He escaped to California, where in 2011 a tip was given to the FBI in which he was arrested, about thirty years after he had escaped from Boston.

                Almost everything in the plot of the story was historically accurate. However, there were a few jarring details about how it differed from what really happened. One big jarring difference was that Flemmi also became an FBI consultant. The film did not depict that at all. Instead, the film only depicted Whitey and how he made an alliance with the FBI. The movie also made a big deal of how Whitey hated informats and rats, yet he still became one. There was another big part of the movie in regards to these events, and that is when Whitey told Stephen Flemmi that he was making an alliance with the FBI and explained why, stating that it was for the good of them all by making the FBI do all the dirty work for them.

                All in all I felt as though the plot of the film was more historically accurate that not with regards to Whitey and South Boston, with a few jarring details as described above. The only other thing that stood out was the portrayal of characters. Some of the characters seemed to be a little odd, as in different than that of which I had expected them to be in history. However, the depiction of Whitey seemed pretty accurate with his story arc and how his character changed throughout the movie in response to the changing conditions of his life.

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