Saw it last night. Good movie. Not great, but not everything can be Heat. I do admire that Michael Mann "goes big" and tries to make a slow-burning epic every time out. This time he's not quite there.
Johnny Depp is brilliant though. This is the story of John Dillinger and if his character wasn't played magnificently the movie would fall flat. Depp rocks the house on this one. All of the other characters are pretty much one-note and orbit him.
The choice to shoot this in digital is interesting, and the tight camera shots in many scenes attempts to give the entire movie a very "happening here & now" vibe. At first it was a bit jarring, particularly in a period piece, constantly looking over character's shoulders or directly into their faces like they're standing right in front of you, but after a while it drew me in.
There's some missed opportunities here. Just by the way it was filmed and the choices of where to focus the story I had very little sense that this was all occurring during the Great Depression. I now understand why Christian Bale's role in the film has been so heavily downplayed in commercials, because his character's a complete stiff who barely has any opportunity at all to emote. And the action scenes, while reasonably well done, lack any effective intensity. It's a little unfair to keep holding a director's previous efforts against him, but Mann's executed some brilliant gunfights before, from the shootout in the streets in Heat to the climax of Thief and the tense sequences in Collateral. Here, particularly for a movie so bent on making things appear up close and intimate, the gunfights come off as distant. I never felt any sense of danger or tension or excitement while watching any of those scenes.
All in all though, again, good flick. I'd recommend it.
Johnny Depp is brilliant though. This is the story of John Dillinger and if his character wasn't played magnificently the movie would fall flat. Depp rocks the house on this one. All of the other characters are pretty much one-note and orbit him.
The choice to shoot this in digital is interesting, and the tight camera shots in many scenes attempts to give the entire movie a very "happening here & now" vibe. At first it was a bit jarring, particularly in a period piece, constantly looking over character's shoulders or directly into their faces like they're standing right in front of you, but after a while it drew me in.
There's some missed opportunities here. Just by the way it was filmed and the choices of where to focus the story I had very little sense that this was all occurring during the Great Depression. I now understand why Christian Bale's role in the film has been so heavily downplayed in commercials, because his character's a complete stiff who barely has any opportunity at all to emote. And the action scenes, while reasonably well done, lack any effective intensity. It's a little unfair to keep holding a director's previous efforts against him, but Mann's executed some brilliant gunfights before, from the shootout in the streets in Heat to the climax of Thief and the tense sequences in Collateral. Here, particularly for a movie so bent on making things appear up close and intimate, the gunfights come off as distant. I never felt any sense of danger or tension or excitement while watching any of those scenes.
All in all though, again, good flick. I'd recommend it.
