Black Mass UK release date, trailer and film details

Release date
Black Mass will be getting a UK release date on the 25th November 2015, following on from the US release date on the 18th September, so it’ll be a dark and brutal introduction to the onset of winter. This makes it well placed to pick up on the Academy Award panel’s hit list. We’re also expecting it to get a lot of build-up hype in the run up to the cinematic release, so it should be a big success at the box office, but the question is whether or not it’ll live up to th
e name it’s starting to make for itself. Visit our movie release dates page to see what else will be making its way to the big screen over the next year or so.

Storyline
The plot for the film is taken from the 2001 book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob. It charts the relationship that forms between Whitey and the FBI after his violent mob boss antics brings him under their influence and he’s made into one of their key informant in a bid to bring down an Italian crime family. However, with the rival gangster family under pressure from the FBI, Whitey’s left to consolidate his control over South Boston, leaving a lot of questions over the entire situation.

Cast
In addition to Depp and Cumberbatch, the film also includes Jesse Plemons (Paul) as Whitey’s longtime criminal associate, Kevin Weeks; Sienna Miller (Unfinished Business) as his girlfriend, Catherine Greig; Dakota Johnson (21 Jump Street) as Lindsey Cyr, his former girlfriend and mother of his only child; Rory Cochrane (Argo) as Steve Flemmi, another Irish mob pal of Whitey’s; Joel Edgerton (The Great Gatsby) as FBI Agent John Connolly; Julianne Nicholson (Boardwalk Empire) as Connolly’s wife, Marianne; and Adam Scott (The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty) as FBI Agent Robert Fitzpatrick.

Production
The screenplay for the adaptation has been written by Mark Mallouk and British playwright and screenwriter, Jez Butterworth (Edge Of Tomorrow). Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) has directed the movie, with Masanobu Takayanagi (Silver Linings Playbook) taking on the director of photography responsibilities, and Brian Oliver, Tyler Thompson, John Lesher, Patrick McCormick and Scott Cooper producing. Peter Mallouk, Lauren Selig, Brett Granstaff and Gary Granstaff are the executive producers.

First impressions
Having seen the trailer and read up on the true story behind the move, there seems to be a lot of potential for Black Mass to be a hard hitting gangster biopic of epic proportions. The only cautionary tale is that that the scene in the trailer below with Whitey pretending to be angry over a family secret feels very similar to Joe Pesci’s legendary “I’m funny” scene in Goodfellas, so there’s an outside chance it could end up feeling a bit too much like just another mob movie.