Overlong and Disappointing Gangsta-flick

Rating: 2/10 (22 July 2009)

Sitting through this very long, tedious and meandering film I couldn't help think back to the gritty, rat-a-tat tat style of the genre's progenitors from Warner Brothers in the 1930s where pace and style ensured total audience involvement with both story and characters. Michael Curtiz would have shot this story in a crisp 100 minutes. But this is 2010 and a BIG picture must be well over two hours and have a budget of 100 million dollars - or it doesn't count.
It is not just the inflated length. As others here have noted, we do not really care much about Dillinger or any of the other characters in this romanticised take on historical events. The script is mostly one-dimensional and the clichés come thick and fast. Johnny Depp (a good actor capable of much better, if given the right material and well-directed) does his 'Jimmy Dean' frown and spends much of the film with a furrowed brow. Not for him the deeply penetrating character study of, say, Cagney's Cody Jarrett. Because, when it comes down to it, most of the effort in making this film went into the various bloody gun-battles all of which are staged magnificently.
Dramatically, however, the film is stagnant.
Many have observed the historical inaccuracies but for me, the dramatic license taken with chronology and actual facts would have been bearable if the film had achieved some impact. The huge amount spent on trying to capture the period also failed, largely through a complete failure to grasp the style and look of the early 30s. Hiring a lot of old cars does not achieve it and dressing the actors in period clothes is only effective if the rest fits too.
Dillinger's girlfriend looked as if she had just stepped off the set of 'Friends'. Her hair and her make up were totally wrong and not remotely reflective of the period. The glimpse we had of Myrna Loy in 'Manhattan Melodrama' proved it. In fact this was true of everyone else as well.
As for the music, yet again I wanted to scream by the end. The incidental score was so soporific and so unrelated to the action, it was as if somebody had put a CD on and left it playing. The so-called period music (especially that played in the nightclub scene near the beginning) was equally anachronistic - far too modern arrangements of songs from the era. This is inexcusable as the original arrangements from most of the great bands of that time still exist. The atmosphere was all wrong as result. (I kept thinking back to Ray Heindorf's brilliant use of period songs in the score to Raoul Walsh's 'The Roaring Twenties' back in 1939.)
So, here was yet another example of how Hollywood has lost the knack of doing this kind of film well. Inflated, overlong, overly violent, and obsessed with effects. Comic strip action for adults and a paper thin script that leaves one unmoved, unimpressed and unlikely to want to ever see it again.
One reviewer here said he is looking forward to the Director's Cut with some scenes restored.
Please God NO! 140 minutes of this were quite enough!