Watch Johnny Depp as gangster Whitey Bulger in new Black Mass trailer

Whitey Bulger
(Image credit: Screenshot)

"If nobody sees it, it didn't happen."

Such is the advice Whitey Bulger gives his small son in the new trailer for Black Mass, a film promising to peel back the layers on "the most feared, the most wanted, the most notorious gangster in U.S. history." Johnny Depp stars as Bulger, who was arrested in 2011 at age 84 after more than a decade on the run. He was sentenced to two life sentences in 2013, for a string of murders and extortion and money-laundering schemes throughout the 1970s and '80s. Some of the families of Bulger's victims are unhappy with Hollywood's take on the criminal; one told Boston's CBS affiliate the trailer glamorizes Bulger's actions.

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Sarah Eberspacher

Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.