But more than just a public misconception or personal miscalculation, Dillinger's charm is one that goes deeper than surface level facade. He doesn't just say he'll be loyal; he'll risk his life for it. He doesn't just break you out of jail because he needs you; he will hold you while you die because he loves you. And while his refusal to live inside any of the lines his country has drawn may seem just plain rebellious, his determination to not be fenced in by the law or held down by economic despair is one that brings inspiration, hope, and life to nearly everyone he meets.

The problem—as much as he keeps pursuing love and hope and the dream of a brighter tomorrow, he also keeps robbing banks and stealing guns and defying pretty much every law he touches. Although he risks his life to return to his lover Bobbie (Marion Cotillard), he puts their relationship back on the line by signing up for another job. Although he repeatedly talks about how he is a man who can go anywhere, he keeps showing up at one robbery after another. And even though he's a man who lives by the rule that he only works with people he knows and never works when he's desperate, with a quickly decreasing list of places to call home and people to call friends, in the end, that's pretty much his only option.

Like many of us, John Dillinger was a man who believed that one crooked method on a path that generally went in the right direction meant that he was in the right. Sure, most of us aren't anywhere close to being on the FBI's most wanted list, but I'm willing to bet that every one of us has one aspect of our life that we know is wrong yet simply refuse to give up. We make up excuses as to why a certain behavior is actually for a greater good. We hold up all of our other "model-citizen" qualities and ask how this one part of our lives could be so wrong when everything else is so right. We see ourselves and our lives as a part of a greater hope and purpose which simply cannot be derailed by something so small, cannot be stopped by laws so petty, or can only come about by bucking legal or moral standards in the process.

As we see in John Dillinger, believing in a life unrestrained by the laws, consequences, and despair of this world has a way of bringing life to a man's soul. As Billie shows us as she goes from a timid coat-check clerk to a woman eager to join Dillinger on his ride of excitement, such belief in the possibility of our futures carries with it an extreme sense of freedom. And although in Dillinger's hands, hope eventually becomes his near delusional demise, in God's, the promise of a future of freedom, life, and possibility is one that is real.

The problem for us as well as Dillinger—even when we know the freedom we can have, we keep going back to the one thing that keeps putting us behind bars. Although God has offered us His grace and forgiveness for our sins, we keep holding onto and turning to our sin instead of Him. And, in the end, while we may still love our wives, campaign for the environment, and go to church, every time we return to sin we simply make it that much easier for it to grab not just one piece of our life, but all of it. And as John Dillinger shows us, that day will come

Continue: 1 2