I was really excited to see this movie, Johnny Depp, Michael Mann, 1930’s gangsters. What more could one want?
Well in this movie, A LOT. The characters all seemed so flat, we had absolutely zero idea what motivates them. While the movie is based almost exclusively on John Dillinger, it tries to weave in other gangsters from the era, but they seem so tacked on, as if the whole era revolved around Dillinger. Of course they couldn’t cover nearly as much ground as the book,but the proiblem is they still try to allude to the scope of the book. But it ends up somehwat confusing and shallow.
There are a couple of very good shootout scenes, especially one in the woods in Wisconsin. But it all adds is some energy to the movie that is otherwise lacking. Depp does a fine job with a Dillinger, but I wonder, if it wasn’t Johnny Depp, would we care about this guy. Are we supposed to care about this guy?
it almost seemed to me like Mann was trying to recreate Heat in the 1930’s. But it didn’t work completely.
having said all that it isn’t a bad movie, Mann, Bale, depp, they are all talented and accomplished, it just isn’t particularly good either. I would give it 2.5 stars out of 4.
Technically, it’s very good. It looks like it has all the pieces to be a great movie, but they never really come together. THe movie feels emotionally hollow and it never really grabs you. For a movie based on charaization, this is a cardinal sin. I felt they should have focused more on the manhunt, which felt like it got the short stick.
I did appreciate that they didn’t try to make Dillinger look overly sympathetic, though.
The way I described it on the way out of the theater is that there were definitely a lot of “whats” but not very many “whys”. I had no real attachment to any of the characters, had no idea why they were doing what they were doing, and just plain found the whole experience pretty unmoving. It looked great, some of the shoot-outs were well-done, but the movie as a whole was “meh” at best.
I had great expectations for this and while it did not live up to them, I still liked it okay.
I agree the character development was lacking, especially when it came to Agent Purvis (Christian Bale). He seemed like an interesting guy and yet we got very little about what drove him.
I thought Marion Cotillard did a great job with what she was given, the final scene in particular. She and Depp had good chemistry and yet there was still a lack of real emotion in their love story. I blame the script because it clearly wasn’t the actors’ faults.
The Little Bohemia shootout scene was very cool.
I’ve heard rumors about Depp getting an Oscar nod. While he certainly deserves an Oscar, it shouldn’t be for this role.
I went on Rotten Tomatoes to looka bit at the Top Critics reviews. it got a 60% and many of the reveiws were basically what we are saying here. Emotionally detached, good technically, it just seems like a missed opportunity.
I enjoyed it just for a fun action flick, but definitely see where everyone’s coming from with their criticisms. I agree that the bits with the other (smaller-time) gangsters was unnecessary, since they just got in the way of Dillinger’s story. I would have loved it to be an epic film with 3 parts: Dillinger, the Chicago organized crime, and J. Edgar Hoover (Crudup was perfect in his small role). Going in, I thought it would be about 50/50 between Depp and Bale, but that wasn’t the case at all. Bale was really underused. But, it was a great film to view, and had some great fun.
Saw this yesterday and I have to agree that the film was meh. I found the direction awful and in parts I got dizzy from the fast movingbackandforthbetweenfaces. The most entertaining part was the old man a few rows down who fell asleep and snored. Loudly. To the point where people yelled “wake up.” How he could have slept through all the gunfire I don’t know.
But the previews for “Inglorious Basterds” look awesome.
Coming out of the theater, my son said that other than the few biggest roles, he couldn’t even think of the names of any of the characters. I realized that he was right.
Anyone else find these scenes at all confusing? [spoiler]In the Little Bohemia shoot-out, I saw Floyd crash through the window/door, and Dillinger and Red sneak out the back. I didn’t see other gangsters get out of the building. So when Floyd got the cop’s car and stopped for the 2 gangsters on the road, I thought they were Dillinger and Red. Then when the car flipped…
At the end, I realized I had no clear idea of who had shot Dillinger. The fat cop was walking behind him with his gun out. Then Dillinger started to turn, and someone shot him through the head, and someone else through the body.[/spoiler]
Or was I just not paying close enough attention?
I did get a kick out of spotting all of the Chicago locations. Especially when they walked out of the “restaurant” onto Adams street, a location I pass nearly every day.
I was confused by how Dillinger even managed to escape that car crash. One minute the car rolls down a hill, flips several times, with the cop car still following behind, and the next scene Dillinger is safe in a house somewhere.
It certainly helps to have read the Bryan Burroughs book this is based on, which details the lives of many of the Depression era gangsters. You do really get to know them with the book. Of course the movie had to omit so much and I was worried that it would pay the penalty for that. I think this would have been far better covered as an HBO series, which could have told the whole story.
There are some glorious set-pieces in the movie though and I’d still recommend it. Just don’t go in with your hopes too high.
If they do a two disk, six hour version of the movie or something, it might be a great movie. But yeah even at two and a half hours, they just couldn’t fit everything in. Hoover and the nascent FBI were intriguing, but largely uncovered. Purvis’ life and thinking was entirely a mystery. But the biggest issue was that it was unexplained why he liked Billie or why she liked him.
Given the presentation of her just instantly deciding to drop her life and go with him the instant he was rude, condescending, and possessive, I suspect that that was intended to be the whole of the script that dealt with her. That other parts of the film might exist in a can to be added back in, I am certain, but I suspect that Billie will remain nothing more than “the love interest”.
IMHO: I tried reading through his reviews for a while, and decided that he largely just rates based on the cinematography. That’s probably why he ended up being a bit different from other reviewers and more likely to like movies that your average movie goer would like. But it also means that there’s really not a lot of meaning behind his rating.
I think you’re mixed up. Dillinger and his dying compadre escaped in a civilian car without a chase whereas the cop car with Babyface Nelson and some of his cronies is the one that flips.
When the fat cop was walking down the street for, like, half a block with his gun out, how did the people walking next to him not notice/freak out? If I saw a guy walking down the street like that I’d know someone was about to get shot and I’d be out of there. Those people didn’t even flinch.
Yes, that is what I gathered later. But at the time I found it quite confusing. I do not believe Babyface’s cronies were either adequately developed before the shootout such that I (and apparently EoD) recognized them on the road, nor do I recall the cronies being shown escaping the building.
And serenata:
I noticed a couple of passers-by shooting glances at fatty-with-his-gun-out, but I agree, there was nowhere near the reaction one would expect in a crowd.
Oh yeah - the two scenes I thought TERRIBLY unbelievable were:
when Dillinger went walking right up towards the cops when Billie was arrested and - evenmoreso, when we strolled around in the detective’s room without anyone even asking “May I help you?”
Ditto. I find my sympathies are aligned with most people in the thread, but I thought David Thomson nails everything I’d love to say perfectly. I’m a huge admirer of Mann’s, so this was particularly disappointing.
