BLACK MASS (15, 123 mins)

Thriller/Drama/Action. Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgaard, Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane, W Earl Brown, David Harbour, Adam Scott, Corey Stoll, Julianne Nicholson. Director: Scott Cooper. Released: November 27 (UK & Ireland)

Crime might pay for Johnny Depp who bids for a fourth Oscar nomination with a tour-de-force portrayal of real-life mobster James "Whitey" Bulger in Scott Cooper's stylish and sporadically bloody crime thriller.

It's a genuinely chilling performance of brooding menace and the chameleonic actor immerses himself in the role, replete with coloured contact lenses, rapidly receding hairline and paunch.

Strip away Depp's theatrics and Black Mass is a handsomely crafted, if overly familiar, tale of crime and punishment that faintly echoes Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning drama The Departed.

Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth's script is unbalanced, relishing scenes of Whitey terrorizing his victims while shortchanging arguably the most interesting relationship in the film: Whitey and his brother Billy.

John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) grew up with the Bulgers in South Boston and returns to the area in 1975 as an FBI agent under Charles McGuire (Kevin Bacon).

The city is under the control of the Winter Hill Gang led by Whitey (Depp), right-hand thug Stephen Flemmi (Rory Cochrane), hitman Johnny Martorano (W Earl Brown) and heavy Kevin Weeks (Jesse Plemons).

Perversely, Whitey's brother Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch) wields legitimate power as a Massachusetts state senator.

When gangland rivals, the Angiulo Brothers, who are connected to the New England Mafia, declare war on the Winter Hill Gang, Connolly secretly contacts Whitey to persuade the kingpin to turn informant.

"It ain't rattin', it's an alliance!" the FBI agent assures his childhood pal.

Whitey provides intelligence on the Mafia and the cops act upon the insider information to bring down the powerful syndicate.

This covert alliance is tested to breaking point when Whitey murders a duplicitous accomplice in broad daylight.

FBI agents John Morris (David Harbour), Robert Fitzpatrick (Adam Scott) and Fred Wyshak (Corey Stoll) question the value of the pact.

Blood is thicker than common sense and John approaches Billy to defuse an explosive situation.

"I'm not asking you to help me. I'm asking you to help your brother," pleads the cop.

"That's the same thing now, isn't it?" retorts the savvy politician.

Adapted from a non-fiction book penned by journalists Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill, Black Mass skims over some of the meatier detail to cut back and forth between Whitey's rise to power and John's inexorable fall from grace.

Edgerton pales next to Depp and Cumberbatch has limited screen time to add flesh to the bare bones of his suited power broker.

In the film's most unsettling scene, Whitey takes the temperature of John's disapproving wife (Julianne Nicholson), who is pretending to be ill, before forcefully squeezing her throat to check if her glands are swollen.

She chokes, her eyes water and Whitey visibly savours every skin-crawling, nerve-shredding second of his dominance.