Johnny Depp is Public Enemy Number One!
I have to say, first of all, that I was quite looking forward to this film. The trailer made it look spectacular and it has Johnny Depp acting normal for Christ’s sake! How could you go wrong??
Well let me tell you that it can. I never thought I would say this, but I got really tired of seeing Johnny Depp in this film. Pretty much the entire focus is on his character, and we don’t really see anyone else. None of the other characters were properly developed, which is such a shame. It could have added so much to the film.
I also found this movie to be very … strange. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something I don’t like about it. The camera angles are very odd, always looking as though the camera man is shuffling along the ground as they film. The action sequence, especially indoors, look horribly fake and utterly stupid. I spent more time giggling at my own stupid running commentary of the film than actually enjoying said film, which is saying something. Nevertheless we were given a few cookies to chew throughout the film. Perhaps not three hours worth, but hey, you can’t win them all.
SPOILERS LIE AHEAD
So we start off with a black screen and text to set the scene – it’s the fourth year of the Great Depression and our hero John Dillinger and his friends are setting out to rob banks. Enter stage right – Johnny Depp, looking very shifty as he is led into a prison. We get our first cookie of the movie in the form of David Wenham, whom I didn’t even know was in this movie! He very craftily, along with his mates, breaks out of prison. This is only enhanced with dying police officers and firing big guns because this movie doesn’t do subtle.
Cut to a different scene and enter stage left – Christian Bale. He looks only slightly ridiculous in his outfit, but makes up for that by spectacularly shooting some guys guts out his mouth. Nice. I presume this is how the producers and director decided to set up the two main characters – they can kill as badass as the other, so don’t you dare cross them! Very weird characterisation there, I must say, but that’s possibly just me.
Moving into the real action, and Very Badass John Dillinger jumps into the camera to shoot up a bank and demand all their money. He’s not even worried when the police turn up, since that’s just how he rolls. They’re smart enough to take hostages and make a clean get away, celebrating the night away once they get back to base.
We next see J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) get totally bitch-slapped in front of some very important committee, as he is insisting that they form a Federal police force to combat crime, and yet because he has no field experience, they discount his [rather intelligent] idea almost immediately. So he retaliates by having a childish tantrum, before announcing to the Press that he is ‘declaring a war on Crime’ and Agent Melvin Purvis will be the charge. Agent Purvis is very charming in front of the cameras and talking in some weird half-constipated accent, but we’ll just ignore that.
There is a bit of filler as Dillinger checks out his future ‘woman’ (actress Marion Cottillard) for the rest of the film, which is interrupted for a bit of plot that foreshadows the end of the movie. But they had to go and ruin that by going back to the French chick and wasting a lot of time where Dillinger and Billieget allcutesy, followed by sex, all of which I could have done without, thanks just the same.
Condensing the rest of this very bizarre movie – Agent Purvis breaks out the ‘we need to be prepared, for it shall be dangerous’ speech several times as they go after Dillinger and his criminal friends. John get thrown in jail (big surprise) and has words with Mr Purvis. Apparently Dillinger didn’t like jail so much, so he busted outta there with seemingly little effort. That was quite amusing. This is then followed by a boring escape scene which is meant to cause tension or something so you think Dillinger might be recaptured. Rinse and repeat for two more hours.
Eventually all hell breaks loose and people die and random crazy villains get thrown in the mix and oh look! Most of John’s gang are now dead. Bank robbery’s go wrong and eventually Dillinger’s Missus gets captured and tortured, but who cares about her. In the end most of the main characters die and you’re left with a bewildered feeling as to where the last three hours of your life went.
I’d rate this a Cool -, if only for the fact that it’s a Johnny Depp-Christain Bale face off, but definitely only something to see if you like shoot-outs and little plot. Any history buff probably should not see this because of all the inaccuracies, but if you can work past that, go for your life. It’s a nice mindless action film, if nothing else.
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Saw the trailer for this, looked really cool mob film, but its biggest problem is that you don’t see the mob, you just focus on John Dillinger. Also there was too little development of the police team, You get a little bit of Bale’s charater but no one else and they also missed out on a lot of cleaver police detective work i felt.
I reckon its a shite + because i really liked the look of the film and the backgrounds.