‘Whitey’ documentary asks how Boston’s most famous mob boss got away with so much murder and mayhem

June 25, 2014 by

Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger/2014/CNN Films/107 min.

Whitey posterTrue-crime aficionado and award-winning documentary director Joe Berlinger says he’s always felt he had a civic duty to point out flaws in the criminal justice system. His latest film, “Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger,” looks at the reign of Boston’s most notorious and nefarious mob criminal and probes his ties with federal law-enforcement agencies. In telling Bulger’s sordid yet riveting story, Berlinger makes a case that there was widespread corruption at the FBI and the Department of Justice.

During his decades-long career, James “Whitey” Bulger, 84, became world famous. His irresistible narrative has spawned a cottage industry of books and films, says Berlinger. Johnny Depp is playing Bulger in the upcoming film “Black Mass” and in 2006’s “The Departed,” Jack Nicholson portrayed a character that was partially based on Bulger.

When Bulger went to trial in June 2013 (after being arrested in June 2011 in Santa Monica), Berlinger says he saw an opportunity, as a filmmaker, to separate the man from the myth. “You have a guy who ruled Boston’s criminal underworld for 25 years and wasn’t even stopped for a traffic ticket. Finally the Massachusetts State Police said enough was enough and started forcing an investigation. … The FBI tips off Bulger and he goes on the lam for 16 years. Frankly, I thought he would never be caught.”

For his lifetime of crime, Bulger is serving two consecutive life terms plus five years at a facility in Tucson, Ariz. He was found to have been involved in 11 murders.

In the moral code of the Irish mafia, however, there was a worse offense than taking a life and that was to be a “rat” or an informant to law enforcement. In Berlinger’s film, we meet insiders on both sides of the law, many of whom speculate on whether Bulger committed the gangster’s ultimate betrayal. Berlinger’s take? “I think Bulger was never officially an informant in the truest sense of the word, but there was a relationship there where he was passing some information. The truth was in the middle.”

The film argues, sometimes eloquently and other times a bit heavy-handedly, that government corruption paved the way for the gruesome work of a vicious criminal, often showing us survivors who were left to pick up the pieces in the wake of brutal violence.

As for isolating the man from the myth, there was one interview subject rich with dramatic irony who does not appear in the film. Whitey Bulger is the brother of former President of the Massachusetts Senate, Billy Bulger. Unfortunately, Billy is not on camera.

But who knows? Maybe Johnny Depp will give him a cameo.

“Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger” opens Friday in New York and July 11 in LA.

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‘Dark Shadows’ fam is all dressed up with nowhere to go

May 11, 2012 by

Dark Shadows/2012/Warner Bros. Pictures, Tim Burton Productions/113 min.

A vampire may be able to live on blood alone, but few movies can exist on camp alone. As much as I was hoping to enjoy Tim Burton’s much hyped and highly anticipated “Dark Shadows,” I found it disappointing.

On the plus side, Dark Shadows” looks slick and gorgeous – the art direction, cinematography, set decoration and special effects are spot on. As always, charismatic Johnny Depp is fun to watch. The character he inhabits here is Barnabas Collins, born in Liverpool in the mid 1700s. The Collins family acquires wealth and power not to mention an imposing mansion in their namesake city of Collinsport, Maine.

When Barnabas grows up, he crosses the wrong woman. Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) is a witch, who turns Barnabas into a vampire and buries him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is freed from his tomb and walks into a world of hippies, macramé and mini-skirts. This is 1972. It’s hard to be lord of the manor, though, when the manor is falling apart and Angelique wants to reignite their dangerous romance.

The rest of the ragtag Collins clan includes Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), Carolyn Stoddard (Chloë Grace Moretz), Roger Collins (Jonny Lee Miller), David Collins (Gulliver McGrath), live-in psychiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter) and groundskeeper/butler Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley). Bella Heathcote plays the newly recruited governess, Victoria Winters, and Barnabas’ true love from the past Josette DuPres.

But somehow these characters never really get off the ground nor do they jell as a “strange family.” This random crew, despite their fetching costumes and makeup, seems purely the result of stunt-casting. They aren’t given much to do besides exchange arch looks (Moretz does some good lip curls) and roll their eyes at Barnabas.

There’s minimal effort to develop these characters; for example, the attempt to delve into Victoria’s past (she was institutionalized as a child) feels supremely clumsy. And there’s little attention paid to why any of this is happening other than you know that the movie itself is a remake of “Dark Shadows,” a popular daytime TV soap opera that ran from 1966-71.

Joan Bennett and Jonathan Frid starred in the daytime TV soap opera, which ran from 1966-71.

The bland and feeble script from Seth Grahame-Smith creaks along with Barnabas remarking on child-birthing hips and unshaven young people, ie hippies. To liven things up, the Collinses throw a ball and hire Alice Cooper to perform. Barnabas declares that Alice is the most unattractive woman he’s ever seen. Were these jokes layered into an actual story, they would be fun but, by the time Cooper appears, the anachronistic humor is wearing pretty thin.

There is supposed to be a love triangle between Barnabas, Angelique, the icy-blonde bad girl and wide-eyed good girl Victoria. Green does an excellent turn as the powerful, alluring femme fatale. But there’s no tension – Barnabas seems strangely detached from both of them – and Angelique’s hell-hath-no-fury antics grow as tedious as the ’70s jokes.

I wasn’t familiar with the TV series (created by Dan Curtis, it starred Jonathan Frid as Barnabas and film-noir great Joan Bennett as Elizabeth), but one of its strengths was fusing low-key campiness and spooky-goth atmosphere. Burton’s anemic version sorely lacks on the eerie/creepy/scary front.

Though Depp is at his best here, to watch and truly enjoy him for almost two hours would require that he not be completely covered up in top coat and breeches.

“Dark Shadows” opens today nationwide.

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A little bromance, a beautiful woman, a battle with Fate

November 24, 2011 by

The Woman in the Window/1944/Christie Corp./99 min.

When you least expect your life to unravel is exactly when your life will unravel, at least in a Fritz Lang film. Take “The Woman in the Window” from 1944. Professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) lives a cozy bourgeois life – he gives lectures on Freud by day, enjoys after-dinner port and cigars by night. But by the end of this night, Richard will be covering up a murder.

Sipping and smoking with him at their Manhattan men’s club are his friends, District Attorney Frank Lalor (Raymond Massey) and Dr. Michael Barkstane (Edmund Breon), who’s fond of barking “Great Scott!”

Richard leaves the club after their booze-fueled yack-fest and lingers at the window of the art gallery next door. While he gazes at the creamy-skinned, raven-haired lady peering out from the canvas, another creamy-skinned, raven-haired lady materializes – it’s the model, a woman named Alice Reed (Joan Bennett).

Alice (Joan Bennett) is the woman in the painting Richard (Edward G. Robinson) and his friends admire.

After chatting over drinks, she invites him back to her splendidly appointed place. Just as they’re getting to know each other, her flashy peacock boyfriend Claude Mazard (Arthur Loft) barges in. Clearly, Alice and Claude haven’t had that “Are we seeing each other exclusively?” talk and violence erupts.

Claude’s rumored “disappearance” doesn’t fool people for long – the cops are digging for info, Richard’s pals Frank and Michael chatter about the case endlessly, and a sleazy associate of Mazard’s named Heidt (Dan Duryea) sees a plum opportunity for blackmail.

Alice and Richard are randomly bound together.

Sharply written and brilliantly acted, “The Woman in the Window” proved a box-office hit. Nunnally Johnson produced the movie and wrote the script from the J.H. Wallis novel “Once Off Guard.” The movie’s original score, a group effort led by Arthur Lange and Hugo Friedhofer, received an Oscar nom.

Vienna-born Lang infuses the film with fatalism, despite its upbeat ending. “I always made films about characters who struggled and fought against the circumstances and traps in which they found themselves,” he said.

And, as usual, Lang pulls out all the visual stops, suggesting powerlessness, alienation and doom. A signature noir shot is Claude entering the shadowy lobby of Alice’s apartment building, against the backdrop of a lonely, rainy nightscape pierced by the glare of a neon clock. Later his body will be draped in more shadows, in the back seat of Richard’s car.

Alice sweet-talks Heidt (Dan Duryea).

Inside Alice’s pristine white apartment, mirrors splice and distort images, contributing to a fractured sense of reality. The effect may have helped inspire Orson Welles to create the fun-house mirrors sequence in 1948’s “Lady From Shanghai.”

Though he got typically great work from his actors, Lang also had a reputation for being difficult. But he clicked with Bennett. Maybe he appreciated the sacrifices she made for her art – a natural blonde, Bennett dyed her hair black. 😉 She also had lots of drama offscreen – she married four times and endured a scandal after her third husband, producer Walter Wanger, shot her lover in the groin. (Her second husband was producer Gene Markey).

Lang and Bennett made four (almost five) films together: another famous noir, 1945’s “Scarlet Street” (which also starts Robinson and Duryea, and is definitely the darker of the two), “Man Hunt” 1941, and “Secret Beyond the Door” 1948. Bennett also starred in “Confirm or Deny” 1941, but director Archie Mayo was brought in to replace Lang.

Johnny Depp

Later in her career, Bennett portrayed Elizabeth Collins Stoddard in the ’60s TV series “Dark Shadows” and she appeared in the 1970 movie “House of Dark Shadows.” The Collinses will hit the big screen again next spring in a Tim Burton–Johnny Depp collaboration.

The mood of “The Woman in the Window” is pure Lang, and much of that mood comes from the actors. Duryea convincingly plays a slimy loser while, in reality, he was a standup guy. It’s a testament to his versatility that Robinson, though famous for his tough gangster roles, is completely at ease as the innocent, cultured professor caught in a film-noir web.

Best of all is Bennett, noir to the nines, spinning that web.

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