Another disappointing movie from Michael Mann

Rating: 2/10 (20 September 2014)

After "Miami vice" this is another bad movie that Michael Mann made lately. I was expecting something like a mix between "Heat" and "The Untouchables" . I always had a soft spot for movies set in the 30's . Add to that a cast involving Johnny Depp , Christian Bale and Marion Cottilard and no wonder that my expectations were high.
Ugh. Where should I start ? First of all the movie looks UGLY. I HATED the use of digital camera. It was already bad in "Miami vice" and "Collateral". Here it completely destroys any mood . The atmosphere of the 30's is gone , despite nice costumes and art direction. I couldn't forget that I was watching the movie because of that f***ing digital camera. Not to mention that the action scenes look terribly fake and lack any excitement.
The screenplay is rather bad. The movie never gives us any good reason to care for Depp. His character is rather unlikable from the beginning to the end. The whole Robin Hood theme is never explored. Bale is stuck with a role that is completely dull . He doesn't have too much screen time and Mann doesn't really seem to care about him . We only get a post epilogue information about Pelvis that I couldn't care less about. I also found it hard to care for Cottilard's character for some reason. The story itself is never particularly interesting or surprising. There is one stupid scene with the police station.
Depp and Cottilard are OK , despite the fact that their characters are VERY underwritten . Bale gives a bad performance , but in his defense his character is so boring and uninteresting that I felt sorry for him. I've heard that Bale was in conflict with Mann during making the movie and maybe his limited screen time and ad performance is a result of that ? The opening jail scene and the ending scene are quite nice and the best thing in the movie. Everything else is just filler. The result is one boring movie that can't be compared to "Heat" or "The Untouchables". It is however slightly better than "Miami vice". I give it 2/10.