Saw the same Sherman Oaks Screening

Rating: 2/10 (7 May 2009)

I was at the same Sherman Oaks screening and I logged in today to say exactly what the other guy thought. He took the thoughts right out of my head! I and a few other viewers had a nice conversation as we walked to our cars hitting pretty much every point that was made by the previous author. For the people that have stated that the movie is remotely watchable, I think we may have seen different films. Channing Tatum is in the film for less than a minute, so I don't understand how we are supposed to feel anything at all for him. Depps' Dillinger and Bale's Pervis are both characters with no incentives or motivation to pursue what they do. They seem to exist only because the script demands it, but there are no risks vs rewards, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. Bale's character is completely flat and uninspiring and truly wasted the gifts of a fine actor. Depp's Dillinger is, according to the movie, motivated by his love of Billie, who needs to be reassured in every conversation with him that he will never die/go to jail/leave her alone/stop loving her, etc...
Also, the film completely ignores the cultural impact that John Dillinger had at the time, helping shape and define the careers of many Hollywood actors including James Cagney, who always played a gangster until Dillinger was killed. He subsequently starred in the film "The G-Men" in which he played and FBI agent.
At the conclusion of the film we are shown a bunch of captions about what happened to all the central characters in the film, but we could care less, because we knew so little about them throughout the film that what happens to them later is insignificant.
On the plus side, the shoot out scenes were excellent and reminiscent of "Heat".
Other than that, it was a terrible film, and not worth the trouble that Nielson made us go through to watch the screener.