Starring Johnny Depp,Christian Bale and tons of 1930s cliches
Johnny Depp can walk into any role and make it his own and this one is no exception. As the gun wielding bank robber John Dillenger,Depp brings a certain swagger to the role as only he can. This movie would have been a lot worse if it weren't for Depp,but the problem is that its already pretty lame with him. I understand that the film makers wanted a certain level of atmosphere and credibility in recreating 1933 here but it was a bit forced at times. Almost as if the research dept simply watched a dozen movies made in that era and very lazily added the dialogue from them along with the whole body english of the time as well. Just sloppy. It could have been made in black and white to at least complete the ripped off themes. This was 2 and a half hours of brutal murders and spectacular shoot outs and car chases injected with God awful dialogue and often marble mouthed deliveries of said dialogue. Did no one swear in the 30s? How can you have a scene involving the beating of a helpless woman followed by a scene where the word scram is uttered? SCRAM!?! Yeah yeah,I know it was widely used back then,but so was "get the f@%& out of here" and that certainly would have lent more credence to these scenes.
I thought my hearing was going at one point after not being able to understand a couple of lines in the movie but my fears were put to rest when the woman sitting in front of me leaned over to her friend and said that she couldn't understand some of the lines. Sloppy sound editing/dubbing all around.
If there is one outstanding moment in this one it would have to be the last big gun battle in the woods. Where the dialogue failed,the sounds and visuals of the several different guns of the time were sensational. Not since Heat have I seen a gun fight worthy of mentioning in such high regard. If you listened with your eyes closed it would have been just as good.
Too bad that one extended scene couldn't save this over long endeavour. It was so overwhelmingly boring at times that I wasn't even mad at the several people in the crowd texting on their cell phones. Normally I would lose my mind at that sort of ignorant behaviour but I found myself envious of them at the time. They still remain assholes though. It was so boring in fact that as soon as Dillinger was gunned down (sorry to ruin the ending,but good lord read a history book dummy) people immediately got up and left the theater with a good 5 or 10 minutes of "story" remaining.
Another bothersome point here was lack of screen time for some actors. Giovanni Ribisi is in this movie for a cup of coffee and is a giant talent just wasted. The biggest joke though was well after the 2 hour mark LeeLee Sobieski shows up for an even lesser role and has maybe one line. Other shafted parts belonged to Steven Dorff and Channing Tatum but Tatum didnt bother me in the slightest. How he's getting these roles is beyond me.
So as you may have gathered,this one didnt quite do it for me. A rare miss by Bale and Depp. The Untouchables was a better film in that genre and to be honest, that one was over rated as well, but at least had some memorable performances.
Rating 2 good gun fights out of 5
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