Comments | shadowfireflame: Movie Review: Black Mass

shadowfireflame

Movie Review: Black Mass

Sep 18, 2015 00:36

I just saw the movie Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, and Benedict Cumberbatch, all of whom were excellent. The movie doesn’t cover much new ground but really showcases Johnny Depp’s amazing transformative abilities and star power; he has so much charisma that it was hard to take my eyes off him ( Read more... )

benedict cumberbatch appreciation, movie / tv reviews

Comments 6

splix September 18 2015, 04:23:58 UTC

Thanks for the review! I'm seeing it on Saturday. Can you tell me - is there a lot of crazy personal violence in it? I think my tolerance for that is diminishing and it'd be nice to know how intense it gets.

shadowfireflame September 18 2015, 10:59:13 UTC

I think it would depend on your personal tolerance. For example, I can't take watching torture or women and children getting hurt, so I found movies like Goodfellas very disturbing, and scenes like the ones in Unforgiven, Slumdog Millionaire, and even Master and Commander unforgettable and extremely distressing ( ... )

splix September 18 2015, 14:37:11 UTC

That's exactly what I needed to know! Thank you.

shadowfireflame September 19 2015, 15:10:17 UTC

I'd love to hear what you thought after you've seen it!

daasgrrl October 13 2015, 02:48:55 UTC

Oooh, you DID write a review - I wondering why I hadn't seen it, but you got it so far before us that I probably skipped this because I didn't want to spoil myself (it only started here last week) *g*

Yes to Depp, and I agree it wasn't "typical" (or rather since I don't see many gangster movies, was not what I expected it to be). I must admit I was intrigued by the whole having a psychopathic brother thing - for so many reasons, lol - but while I thought they were quite good individually, they never seemed to quite click as brothers for me. I mean, all the emotions seemed right, but maybe it was just physically, or *something*. I couldn't quite buy it. Not sure that could have been helped though!

I love your reviews - always so reliable ;)

shadowfireflame October 13 2015, 14:34:59 UTC

Thank you!

You're definitely right that Johnny Depp and BC don't look like each other or like brothers! I had to suspend my disbelief there.

I have seen a lot of movies about "the mob" or the Mafia/yakuza/gangsters (this list is all right), and the thing I usually end up feeling is that while their outright message is that violence is bad and makes psychopaths of us all, the movies can't help but glorify it at least little bit just by the nature of showing it onscreen. Like they'll say, "These people are so corrupt; look at how violence is bad for communities!" but their title screens are all attractive people/women as props carrying guns provocatively. So..."violence is bad...but looks so cool!" ends up being a subtextual message ( ... )