Whitey

The FBI thought they had him. It was the other way around.

CNN Films’ feature documentary “WHITEY:  United States of America v. James J. Bulger” is a sweeping, dramatic and revelatory film that follows the trial of the infamous gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Embedded for months with an incredible cast of characters – including FBI agents, victims’ families, Bulger’s defense lawyers, gangsters, journalists, and police officers – Academy Award-nominated director Joe Berlinger examines how Bulger was simultaneously empowered and abetted by the FBI and the Department of Justice, as a consequence of it’s Top Echelon Informant program, to reign over a criminal empire in South Boston for decades.  Using the unfolding trial as the dramatic thread for the film, Director Berlinger brings together the main players and sows seeds of uncertainty about long-held beliefs surrounding Bulger’s story.

At the emotional center of this debate, are the victims and victims’ families, who to this day continue to seek truth, justice and accountability after decades of obfuscation and misinformation. Ultimately raising more questions than it answers, WHITEY offers a fascinating exploration of the elusiveness of the truth and the human impulse to claim ownership of it in pursuit of one’s own ends.