Here’s What’s So Scary About the Black Mass Trailer
[fragment number=0]
COMMENTARY
Yes, Johnny Depp is clearly back on his game. And yeah, the pacing built an incredible amount of tension for a two-minute clip. And oh yeah, the thought of James “Whitey’’ Bulger making implicit threats to you should make your blood run cold. But none of that was the scariest part of the new trailer for Black Mass, the upcoming Bulger biopic.
What’s so scary is FBI agent John Morris sitting across from Bulger. What’s so scary is that this really happened.
Morris (played by David Harbour), along with John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), handled Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman’’ Flemmi. That’s Connolly in the white short-sleeved shirt at the head of the table.
It’s 1979, and the group — along with a few others not depicted in the scene — is celebrating because Morris and Connolly helped Bulger and friends avoid indictments related to race fixing at Suffolk Downs. Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill wrote about the surreal dinner in “Black Mass,’’ the non-fiction account of Bulger and the FBI based on the pair’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting:
[bdc-gallery id=”108912″]
Something much stranger than the proper, arm’s-length FBI informant relationship was going on in Boston. But at the time, Morris opened some wine, and filled everyone’s glass. Bulger, it turned out, had indeed brought a gift, a token of affection revealing that he had a sense of humor. He presented FBI agent Nick Gianturco with a little wooden toy truck, a remembrance of the agent’s undercover work in the Operation Lobster hijacking case.
There’s a chance that this wasn’t the 1979 dinner depicted in the trailer. Morris hosted a number of dinners in his home. From the book “Black Mass:’’
[Rebecca, Morris’s wife] was not happy about having reputed killers as house guests. The marriage was already strained, and the couple fought. In all his FBI years Morris had never done anything like this. Maybe he’d brought work home with him, but never two actual gangsters. Bulger and Flemmi now knew where he lived, now knew his family, could wonder if Morris made a practice of hosting informants, and, to discover their identity, stake out the Morris home.
This isn’t The Departed. It’s not The Town, or Mystic River, or Gone Baby Gone. This is a real Boston crime story, based on real people, and real murders.
This was Boston’s worst mobster, his accomplices, and two of the most bent lawmen in our city’s history breaking bread to celebrate their partnership. That’s what’s so terrifying.
Correction: A previous version of this article referred to “the late’’ Gerard O’Neill. Physicist Gerard O’Neill passed away in 1992. Author Gerard O’Neill is alive. We deeply regret the error.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com