A bit slow, but good overall.

Rating: 8/10 (6 July 2009)

It stars Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. This movie takes place in the 1930's and is about John Dillinger who was a bank robber and the last 18 months of his life. Johnny Depp plays Dillinger and he was a very good choice for the role because he looks very much like him, but not as much as Leonardo Di Caprio would have. Since Johnny Depp has done so many great roles, I can't say that this is his best but it's just another great role for him and a great performance. Maybe it can fall in his top ten.
Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis and spends the whole movie hunting down Dillinger and trying to put him behind bars. Christian Bale is actually a great actor despite his recent years. The Dark Knight was a great movie, but it wasn't because of his performance. It's great to see that he's not using the Batman voice anymore like he was using in Terminator: Salvation.
Everyone else was solid.
This in definitely a great movie, but unfortunately it is a little bit flawed. The gun battles are amazing and the gun shots are very loud and realistic like it's supposed to sound. If there's something you can expect in a Michael Mann directed film, it's that it will have great gun shot sound effects. If you don't like loud noises, I don't recommend it.
However, there is this one gun battle that takes place in the forest that's probably about 15 minutes long. Way too long in my opinion and I started getting bored at that point about an hour and a half into the movie. But, it managed to pick up near the end.
A major complaint that I'm hearing is the constant use of HD video. The entire movie is actually shot with hand-held cameras which is said to have a negative effect on the film. What these cameras did was make several parts of the movie much more blurry when you would like to be able to see, darker and and whole lot noisier. Personally, I wasn't bothered too much by the use of the cameras. They actually are able to make you feel that you're part of the action, which is great. They are still a bit unnecessary, because the movie could have been shot with film, but I didn't enjoy the film any less because of it.
Also, this movie had a very good soundtrack. It seemed to go very well with the visuals and was a great selection of the best tunes of the 30's, which I am not familiar with.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie and I would give it a 7.5/10, brought down because it was slow for about 25 minutes but it managed to pick up again. You'll be entertained, but if you actually want to learn about the life of John Dillinger, that's not what you'll get. What you'll be seeing on the screen is only his time robbing banks. If you really want to learn more than you can browse Wikipedia, which is always available. That's my review of the film and I was helpful.