Johnny Depp doesn’t channel Robert De Niro to portray Whitey Bulger, Boston’s most notorious mobster, in Black Mass. He doesn’t even go for Jack Nicholson in The Departed, whose character was based in large part on Bulger. Instead, his undead icy blue contacts, his receding slicked-back hairdo, and even his whisper-growl demeanor all evoke Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. Which is too bad, since this portrayal of Bulger as a cartoon rather than a human absolutely destroys Black Mass. What could have been a psychologically complex character study instead falls flat.

Black Mass seems to be perpetually confused about what story it wants to tell. It is as though the screenwriters, Jez Butterworth and Matt Mallouk, cobbled together a timeline of events from Bulger’s life and staged them chronologically. The phrase “narrative arc” doesn’t seem to have crossed their minds. Efforts to contextualize Bulger’s occupation with details about his personal life never coalesce in revealing ways. The film gains some momentum when it pursues Bulger’s involvement with the FBI as an informant, but even then, Bulger himself is less interesting than the tension he creates within the bureau. Joel Edgerton gives a standout performance as FBI agent John Connolly, Bulger’s FBI contact, but that’s partially because he benefits from a complete character arc. If only the film could swap its A-plot and B-plot.

I hate to be that person who quotes Shakespeare in a Herald blurb, but Black Mass reminds me of that bit from Macbeth: “It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” Black Mass has no idea what it wants to signify. But it does amount to a lot of sound and a lot of hollow fury.