Detective: "John Dillinger isn't going to see a Shirley Temple movie!"...

Rating: 7/10 (7 July 2009)

Director Michael Mann has given us a stylish gangster film, the kind that Warner Bros. used to make in the studio days with someone like James Cagney as Cody Jarrett in WHITE HEAT.
This time the gangster is real-life public hero, John Dillinger, played in JOHNNY DEPP style by the actor who is convincing as the man who, from the very opening scene, plans a prison break that Mann has filmed with startling realism that jumps off the screen. I say hero because that was the public's perception during the Great Depression of any man who could thwart the authorities and rob banks with such authority and skill.
MARION COTILLARD is the love interest, the only angle of the film that reminds one of Hollywood hokum, the way the gals were always featured in the Cagney and Bogart crime melodramas--but she plays her part well and is especially strong in some of the final scenes where the police are giving her a brutal interrogation in an attempt to locate Dillinger.
Technical credits are all excellent, including the photography and background music, evocative of the '30s settings. Interesting use of some Billie Holiday songs on the soundtrack are combined with an effective and unobtrusive soundtrack by composer Elliot Goldenthal.
The only weakness is that most of the other supporting members are given little character development to work with--but since the camera is almost always on Depp as Dillinger, who gives a riveting performance, this can easily be overlooked. Good chemistry between Depp and Cotillard is an asset.
There are only two other main characters of interest--Christian BALE as Melvin Purvis and BILLY CRUDUP as J. Edgar Hoover. Both are excellent. Bale comes across as a basically decent man from Tennessee who is practically forced into becoming an enforcer by Hoover who is anxious to get his Federal Bureau of Investigation started. His first job is to go after Pretty Boy Floyd. When Floyd is killed, Hoover knows he found the right man for the job of hunting down Dillinger and his gang.
The shootouts are exceptionally well staged and there are many of them throughout the story of one of America's most famous outlaws. Although the film runs two hours and twenty minutes, there is seldom a lull in the storyline, thanks to some very impressive direction by Michael Mann and some fine performances from the cast.
The windup concludes with Dillinger attending the Biograph theater to see Clark Gable, William Powell and Myrna Loy in MANHATTAN MELODRAMA. When the police learn that he has a choice of two theaters, one of the detectives asks what's playing at both. We know they made the right choice for their ambush when a detective says with assurance, "John Dillinger isn't going to see a Shirley Temple movie!"