The documentary Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger is about the trial of Whitey Bulger, the Irish mob boss who ruled the Boston crime scene for 25 years until he went on the lam in 1994 and evaded the FBI until 2011. It turns out that he had been protected from arrest because he had been an informant to corrupt local FBI agents. In his 2013 trial, he was convicted of 11 murders.
The Whitey Bulger saga has been most notable for the protection by the FBI, the long manhunt and his dramatic capture in Santa Monica. This documentary focuses on the trial and Bulger’s odd defense. Bulger was perfectly willing to admit to murderous crimes, but demanded a chance to deny that he had been an FBI snitch (which was totally irrelevant to whether he had committed the crimes that he was charged with). Equally oddly, the prosecution was intent on proving Bulger’s snitchdom (although not needed for his conviction).
We hear from some of the people who Bulger victimized, and we get a sense of the lives that Bulger ruined, not just the cops and robbers aspect of his story. We also hear Bulger himself on phone calls to his lawyers.
It’s an interesting story, but the filmmaking has look and feel of cable TV non-fiction shows, repeating over and over the same shots of black SUV’s hauling Whitey to trail and helicopter sweeps across Boston harbor, aerial shots of the Boston federal courthouse, and the like. On the whole, I didn’t find Whitey very compelling.
Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.