Johnny Depp in a serious role? What the heck just happened? This must be impossible right? Well as the saying goes, anything is possible and it just did. Most of us are accustomed to Mister Depp taking in weird and quirky roles. From one of his first roles as Edward Scissorhands and to his most popular role being Captain Jack Sparrow - well you get our point. Read on to find out if Johnny Depp can be spectacular even without all the glitz, the glamour and the bizarre.
The film centers around John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), a famous bank robber during the Great Depression. It starts off with John being "escorted" by his associate to the Indiana State Prison. Unknown to the prison guards, this is all a cover and John Dillinger successfully busts out the other members of his gang. Concurrently, due to the rising number of gang-related bank robberies, John Edgar Hoover is pushing for a federal police force (the future FBI) to make peace across the states. He enlists Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to hunt down the elusive John Dillinger and to start a "war on crime" and hopefully show that a national police agency is really worth the price.
All we have to say is Johnny Depp proved a point - he too can be wondrous in a serious role. Too
bad that the film was a disappointment in the storyline department. First, for the good things, and as mentioned, Johnny Depp was really spectacular in this one. He made the character of John Dillinger pop out and what is even more scary is the resemblance they have of each other. The other actors were wonderful as well. The use of high definition cameras was also a plus. Seeing the gunfights in high definition is a sight to behold and probably one of the firsts in mainstream film. Now for the bad parts, we feel that the acting and the ultra sharp fight scenes did not save this film at all. The storyline jumped from one scene to another making us feel that the characters were not fully realized. Take the love between John Dillinger and Billie Frechette - we would even be surprised if you actually feel the love between them develop. Ironically, this film is around 2 and a half hours long already. Another downside is the talkish nature of the film which would certainly turn off people who expect gunfights galore. Finally, there was very little suspense or drama that was put out on screen. Again, there is a huge disconnection between film and the view - not a good sign for a film. Overall, we were disappointed. It is not that bad of a film but it certainly is not that great.
Rating: 3 reels
Why you should watch it:
- Johnny Depp was spectacular and so were everyone else
- using High-Def cameras for the fight scenes is a must see experience
Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the film jumps from one scene to another making you feel wanting more
- although it has lots of action scenes, it has way, way more talk
- the suspense and drama went missing
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Comments
I can't wait to see this movie. Johnny Depp is probably one of the best actors of our time. If you ever watch him, he never plays the same character twice. When you watch him on screen, you tend to forget that he is Johnny Depp, a key signature of a talented actor.
ReplyDeleteYup and he was outstanding in this film!
ReplyDeletethanks for the comment!