Star power finally ignited the Lido in earnest with the arrival of Johnny Depp for the premiere screening of Black Mass and hordes of fans – many of whom had spent the night waiting – besieged the Palazzo del Cinema. Scott Cooper’s telling of the life story of Boston gang boss Whitey Bulger and his unholy alliance with FBI agent John Connelly features a stellar cast that includes Joel Edgerton, Dakota Johnson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Corey Stoll, Kevin Bacon and Peter Sarsgaard, but the molten core of this movie is undoubtedly Depp who proves, as Cooper put it in Venice, to be a superstar willing to take risks that few others would. Here that means mainly a complete physical transformation via makeup and prosthetics, which helps the actor thoroughly disappear into a character that fairly radiates danger. “I found the evil in myself a long time ago.” Depp quipped to the press, “I accept it, we are old friends. But with James Bulger, I think you have to approach him as just a human being.” That is a task with a high bar especially considering the memorable job Jack Nicholson did with the same character in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed which tread the same narrative from a more markedly genre angle.
Scott and Depp take a more straightforward biographical approach, which nevertheless echoes plenty of gangster movie classics. As Joel Edgerton expounded at the press conference that genre “is a great way to stand on stool and watch bad people do bad things in a safe way,” something the Animal Kingdom alum would know something about. “No matter how evil we would consider someone,” added Depp, “they would never consider themselves evil. There is even something poetic about what (Bulger) was able to do in his ‘work’ while at the same time being of proud Irish livestock, loyal to his neighborhood, a caregiver to his mother, could help an old lady with her groceries. And 10 minutes later maybe bash someone’s skull in”.
The movie delves into the contradictions, primarily in his relationship with FBI agent Connely (Edgerton) a fellow Boston “Southie” who traded information for protection with the gangster with whom he had been childhood friends. Johnny Depp plays the man (currently serving consecutive life sentences in federal prison) with a seething viciousness, which is all too believable – and remarkably removed from some of the more stylized characterizations he has been known for. Buzz was positive on the Lido and overall consensus was that the performance has a chance of being remembered at awards time.
In the meantime, it was time to enjoy Venice on a glorious day. Cooper, Depp, Johnson and Edgerton visited with HFPA journalists on San Clemente, an island in the lagoon, which has been a convent and – perhaps fittingly – an asylum for the criminally insane.
Luca Celada
Dakota Johnson, Scott Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joel Edgerton
of Black Mass (and the paparazzi fleet)

Photo credit: Luca Celada/HFPA
Joel Edgerton plays a rogue FBI agent in Black Mass

Photo credit: Luca Celada/HFPA
Press Room madness for Johnny Depp

Photo credit: Luca Celada/HFPA
Dakota Johnson on the Venice Lagoon

Photo credit: Luca Celada/HFPA