MOVIE #11 - Michael Mann has a knack for making huge swaths of his movies feel like you’re eavesdropping on powerful men having hushed conversations in exactly the way you imagine they would if they were not in a movie.  When those men are played by actors who burst off the screen (e.g. DeNiro and Pacino in Heat), it’s electric.  But when you have actors who basically disappear into themselves (e.g. Depp and Bale in this movie), it’s a tougher knot. There’s not much here in the way of plot - we join Dillinger at a time of Mann’s choosing and basically ride along until his death - but Mann floats the camera in a medium close-up on the faces of Depp and Bale for the majority of his film, as if he’s begging us in this season of explosions and sweeping slo-mo to notice how much story is being told in every subtle gesture and bemused glare.  With ten Best Picture noms available this year, it’ll be interesting to see if a summer movie that’s basically a violent art film will make the list.

MOVIE #11 - Michael Mann has a knack for making huge swaths of his movies feel like you’re eavesdropping on powerful men having hushed conversations in exactly the way you imagine they would if they were not in a movie.  When those men are played by actors who burst off the screen (e.g. DeNiro and Pacino in Heat), it’s electric.  But when you have actors who basically disappear into themselves (e.g. Depp and Bale in this movie), it’s a tougher knot.

There’s not much here in the way of plot - we join Dillinger at a time of Mann’s choosing and basically ride along until his death - but Mann floats the camera in a medium close-up on the faces of Depp and Bale for the majority of his film, as if he’s begging us in this season of explosions and sweeping slo-mo to notice how much story is being told in every subtle gesture and bemused glare.  With ten Best Picture noms available this year, it’ll be interesting to see if a summer movie that’s basically a violent art film will make the list.