Stars:
**
Rating: R for language,
violence and adult themes
Run
Time: 2
hours, 20 minutes
It doesn’t
get hotter – or more A-list – than Johnny Depp and Christian Bale burning up
the screen in a ruthless and prickly Michael Mann epic.
But oh how
mighty do fall. Mann’s abstract ode to Public Enemy Number One – the infamous
John Dillinger – is a colossal misstep.
The story
is a familiar one with little in the way of sizzle. Dillinger (Depp) is sprung
from prison only to reclaim his reputation as the most notorious Depression-era
bank robber of all time. Tired of the low blows to Windy City law enforcement
J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) appoints somber FBI bloodhound Melvin Purvis
(Christian Bale) as Special Agent in charge of the Chicago Field Office with
one goal in mind: take down Dillinger.
The FBI has
its panties in a twist but the public is enthralled – their sympathies lying
squarely with the handsome anti-hero toying with an institution many blame for
their financial woes. Dillinger is a celebrity, a criminal bon vivant of the
first rank.
And the man
gets what he wants, including a doe-eyed coat-check girl (Marion Cotillard as
Billie Frechette) who rather unceremoniously becomes Dillinger’s moll because
he says so.
My biggest
gripe lies with Mann, who mixes movie metaphors like a mad scientist. Mob films
need style and luster to match their kinetic posturing – the macho swagger,
incessant shootouts, and vibrant blood and guts. Mann pulls a one-eighty and
plays it like a disjointed fever dream; a bleak, tommy-gunned roundelay of
jumpy cameras, ambient light and dull lulls punctuated by spasms of violence
that lack characterization or control.
Much of the
dialogue is maddeningly unintelligible, as is anything relating to a back-story.
Give me some character study to chew on, or give me a roadmap. Emotionally
muted doesn’t cut it when the stakes are this high.
Depp is
complicit in this disappointment, playing it lazily loquacious rather than
iconic and mumbling his way through cliché after cliché with none of his
signature panache. Where’s the charisma, the sense of urgency? Ditto for Bale
whose awkward accent and steely reserve is frosty and fidget-worthy.
One
or two scenes catch fire – most notably a theater piece in which Dillinger sits
with a cheerfully oblivious picture-show crowd while a melodramatic Newsreel
warns that he could be among them. Costumes are some of Colleen Atwood’s finest
(yet subtlest) and the spit and polish of 1930s Midwest is evident in every
frame.
I imagine
there are some who will perceive this as nothing shy of genius – a breathlessly
bold experiment at the hands of a master director. Unfortunately I will not be
among them.