There's more to the new Black Mass trailer than meets the eye

Hopefully we’ve all seen the two minute teaser trailer for the upcoming gangster movie Black Mass, by now. If not, it's right here. The trailer has gotten everybody excited and there’s a number of reasons why.

• Firstly it’s the first mainstream out-and-out gangster movie since American Gangster in 2007.

• Secondly it looks as though Johnny Depp is cutting his serious acting chops again. I’ve even read several over-excited bloggers mentioning an Academy Award coming his way – based on a two minute trailer, yeah right – it’s good but not that good. Let’s see the whole movie first.

• Thirdly, as movie trailers go it’s a damn good one. With the exception of a few cutaways, the whole trailer is, most unusually, a single scene, and it’s gripping as hell. It had me holding my breath when I was watching it. Depp as real-life Boston mobster Whitey Bulger is almost unrecognisable. And those eyes… they look right through you… and the laugh at the end... shit this looks good.

So can I make this trailer any better for you? Possibly, if we know what’s actually happening? So what is going on? Is the gentleman divulging the family steak recipe a snitch or something?

The guy in question is John Morris, supervisor of the FBI organised crime squad (played by David Habour). That’s right, the fella Bulger is intimidating is the man in charge of the government agents tasked with bringing him down. Also the guy at the head of the table is FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) corrupt to the core.

Here’s a question then, what is notorious mobster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger doing at a dinner party with an FBI agent? Well Bulger was an informer to the FBI (remember Frank Costello in The Departed? That’s right he was based in part on Bulger) and Morris preferred to make his CIs (confidential informants) feel comfortable and important so there was to be no park benches or empty parking lots. No! Instead he invited them around for dinner and his wife would cook.

So what we see in the trailer is Bulger being very intimidating, pulling the old Joe Pesci “Funny how” set-up, but it’s not a snitch or low level mobster he’s putting the screws on, it’s a senior FBI official, in his own home where his wife and children sleep, no-less. That kind of up’s the stakes somewhat, doesn’t it? It certainly whets the appetite for the full release in September this year.