Good but will be forgotten after a few months

Rating: 6/10 (1 July 2009)

I saw this at a midnight showing with some friends. It's a good movie but could have been so much better. The main complaint is that Christian Bale's character for how much screen time is given isn't that interesting.He's very one dimensional where we only see one side of him. It isn't Bale's fault that he wasn't given much to work with on the character. Comparing this to Michael Mann's classic "Heat" where he focuses on the criminals and the cops chasing them. This feels very weak where Al Pacino was shown in different lights from father and husband to a dedicated detective. Christian Bale's character could have been any generic cop and given far too much screen time for someone with no personality.
A lot has been made about the digital HD camera used in filming. It is hit or miss throughout the film. Sometimes it looks great especially during some of the daytime scenes. Than sometimes during a few of the nighttime shootouts you'll think your watching a re-enactment on TV than a movie. Also at first what I thought was problems with the theater's sound system I saw it at, it seems that it wasn't just mine where during a few scenes it seems like the character's dialogue is cut off or too quiet.
Still this film is still a solid effort with Johnny Depp doing a good job as the charismatic Dillinger to what Michael Mann does best which is crazy shootouts. The film has some memorable scenes but the film as a whole is in the category of not being bad but at the same time will be forgotten a few months from now. So overall good but clearly it was trying to be "Heat" in the 1930's and it just didn't pull it off as well.