Slick Gangster Flick

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2020)

Johnny Depp delivers another mysteriously effective performance as gangster John Dillinger. The script sticks close to the actual events in Dillinger's life and in some ways tries to make him a heroic figure, but with the FBI relentlessly pursuing "public enemy #1"not for his murderous ways but because he perfected the art of both robbing banks and breaking out of prison it is easy to see him as a sympathetic character. Although the film does not portray law enforcement as totally idiotic, it does make the FBI seem to use crime-fighting as a distraction from the poverty and brutality that drove men like Dillinger to it. However, in an effort to be even-handed, the film does not delve too deeply into the motivations of the detectives who pursued him nor does it investigate the mindset of Dillinger himself. The Chicago settings are masterfully re-created. Nevertheless, and this is an above par gangster movie that even contains references to James Cagney, whose film "The Public Enemy" remains the standard against which all gangster movies are measured.