WHITEY: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA V. JAMES J. BULGER

Director Joe Berlinger / 2014

"Riveting … doesn't resemble a true crime doc as much as a first-rate James Ellroy adaptation." – The Playlist

The acclaimed director of Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (MIFF 2004) and the Paradise Lost films (MIFF 1996 & 2001), Oscar- and Emmy-nominated Joe Berlinger returns with his latest documentary stunner.

For over 30 years, James "Whitey" Bulger was the infamous head of Boston's criminal underworld and, at one time, second only to Osama bin Laden on the FBI's most wanted list (and fascinating enough to public appetites that he's soon to be played by Johnny Depp in a narrative feature also starring Guy Pearce and Joel Edgerton). That is, until his arrest in 2011, charged with 32 felonies including 19 counts of murder.

Interviewing key players in complex, landmark trial, Berlinger deftly raises questions over the extent to which the FBI and Department of Justice may have been complicit in Whitey's reign of terror, revealing deep moral ambiguity on both sides of the law. You be the judge.

"The eerie effectiveness of Whitey is that it shows how many people can tell their version of the truth and still come up short." – Indiewire

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