By: Tucker Lawson, Contributing Writer

“Black Mass,” a film about the Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, played by Johnny Depp, and his cooperation with the FBI premiered the weekend of Sept. 18 to good but not great numbers. The film grossed $22 million, coming in second behind “Maze Runner: Scorched Trails,” which grossed $30 million. Assuming the average of each movie ticket is $10, approximately two million people, including me, wasted their money on seeing this film. I, as many people did, had high hopes for this film.

“Black Mass” proves that even with a star-studded cast including Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon and Joel Edgerton, a movie can flop. The director, Scott Cooper, pretty much took every page out of the Martin Scorsese book of tricks while shooting this movie. The movie tries to give the murderous sociopath a good side, but falls short. If the same amount of work was put into developing John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) and Billy Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch) as was put into making Bulger into an antihero the film might have been worth the movie ticket.

Ultimately, “Black Mass” was an attempt at making your stereotypical gangster movie. “Black Mass” had the stereotypical FBI agents and stereotypical thick accented gangsters and stereotypically suspenseful music.