I had to go back to 1986 to find a studio film of director Michael Mann's that I hadn't seen. I thought a few of his latest, The Kingdom and Miami Vice, were wildly entertaining and the first was even thought-provoking. When I found out that Johnny Depp would be playing John Dillinger and Christian Bale would pursue him as FBI agent Melvin Purvis, I couldn't wait to see the film, but my schedule this summer prevented me from actually getting to the theater. When the film hit DVD distribution, I was determined to see it quickly and picked it up that day.

Man, was I disappointed!

While you know that J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) is behind it all, Purvis is the force for good throughout the movie, while Dillinger and his cronies tear up cities across the U.S. Of course, in Mann's version, Dillinger's relationship with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) plays out across the screen, a torrid love affair between a robber on the run and a coat-check attendant. The action is slow, especially for a Mann film, and repetitive: robbery, romance, robbery, romance, and various time spent hiding out and plotting the next robbery. What I had read about Dillinger made him more of a romanticized Robin Hood than the movie did, and certainly made him far from legendary.

While the old adage "crime doesn't pay" certainly seems right after Dillinger takes a bullet below the eye, I was never made to feel sympathetic toward him. He doesn't ever seem to try to escape the life of crime until the very end, but the life itself wasn't much of a bonus to his existence, and it's not like he paid for Frechette to live the high life. He's constantly running, perpetually distrustful (except for the individual who does him in), and isn't particularly likable. He is, however, loyal and true (in his own way) even while he's knocking off banks and such. But he and his goons are too violent to innocent victims to be considered public heroes.

Purvis on the other hand has that defining moment where he stops Frechette from being beaten to death by a Federal officer, but it's not enough to make him all that likeable. He's a bit like Bale's other characters, like Bruce Wayne (cold and aloof) or the violent officer in Equilibrium. And given the standpoints of those two main characters, I was left without much reason to care for the movie.

What is Mann's point? That we do what we are forced to, thinking we can provide for our families, and then retire, when our "retirement" is ripped away just at the moment we need it? Seriously? I can find few other allusions in the story, and think this is a stretch. But the "story" setup here through the biopic leaves us feeling unfulfilled and let down.