Hunted Down

Even more compelling reading since the murder of Whitey Bulger! Writer Kevin Weeks was top Lieutenant to James "Whitey" Bulger, head of the South Boston Irish Mob, who was on the run for more than 16 years before his capture on June 22, 2011. While on the FBI Most Wanted list with a two million dollar reward, Whitey had been second only to Osama bin Laden. HUNTED DOWN is a story of murder, friendship and loyalty within the mob, using many situations that Weeks could have omitted from his NYT bestselling memoir, BRUTAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MY LIFE INSIDE WHITEY BULGER#&39;S IRISH MOB. While HUNTED DOWN is fiction, its insider knowledge makes it all the more intriguing, with hints toward where Whitey and his companion Catherine Greig may actually have spent those 16 years on the run. 

 In this story, Joey Donahue is released from prison after serving six years for racketeering and crimes committed as deputy to the infamous South Boston Irish Mob boss and psychopathic murderer Whitey Bulger. This time, he is determined to stay clear of the life of crime that has supported him for the past twenty-five years. After a year of trying unsuccessfully to find a job due to his notorious association with Bulger, Joey finally surrenders to the temptation of a friend#&39;s offer to join him in a fast score, a simple robbery of a drug dealer that should pay the bills until he finds a viable job. The robbery turns out to be a sting operation set up by the FBI for the express purpose of forcing Joey to cooperate in the frustratingly unsuccessful search for his onetime mentor. With Joey reluctantly partnered with an FBI agent, the hunt for Whitey takes place against an international backdrop until the old friends finally meet up in a high-stakes climax, ending the game of cat and mouse once and for all. 
 
It is speculated that Bulger is also the inspiration for the ruthless crime kingpin Francis "Frank" Costello, played by Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese#&39;s Academy Award-winning film The Departed (2006).

With ice blue contacts and that weird haircut, Depp almost does look like a different person in the movie. The footage shows him playing Bulger at a dinner party, leaning on his host to reveal his "family secret" steak marinade recipe. Predictably, this gets dark pretty fast. After Bulger gets the recipe he turns it around, and says something to the effect of, "If you gave up that family secret to me so easily, how can you be trusted?" Then he breaks the tension by laughing, and we cut to him doing your typical gangster movie type of hitman stuff. With that combination of tension, laughter, and violence, Depp feels like he#&39;s channeling the Joker when he puts on that Whitey makeup.

It#&39;s hard to say if this will be a good movie based on the footage we saw, but it does look divisive. If this goes well, Depp will have a heap of critics praising this as a return to form, but it#&39;s also easy to see this as something that glorifies Boston#&39;s most notorious living crime boss more than anything else. 

The makeup really is incredible. Depp seems to be obsessed with literally losing himself in his roles lately. In Tusk he plays a backwoods Canadian detective in a fake nose for laughs, but this time he#&39;s fully sincere and fully menacing. If nothing else it leaves us wanting to see more." — JJ Duncan, zimbio.com

Kevin Weeks is a former mobster and was a longtime friend and confidant to James J. Bulger, the infamous boss of the Winter Hill Gang, a crime family based out of the Winter Hill neighborhood in Somerville, Massachusetts. Phyllis Karas is the coauthor of two previous books. She is a contributor to People magazine and an adjunct professor at the Boston University School of Journalism. She lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with her husband.