I went on 'Angels and Demons" and "Terminator Salvation" with no expectations and I left the cinema amazed. I went on "PE" with very high expectations and when I left the theatre I felt like someone has taken a huge dump on my head.
I am so disappointed.
I loved Michael Mann's "Heat" were Al Pacino and Robert Deniro had terrific showdown and the only scene they have together in this movie is so powerful and filled with tension everyone who saw the movie was moved and talked about that one scene for days. When I heard that Johnny Depp, fine actor who is not bad to look at and Christian Bale, for whom I'd give up my own kidney share just one scene in that film I thought "wow this is going to be exciting!". It wasn't.
The editing, which was terrible and the dialogues, which were just weak and forced killed it. The movie is so chaotic at one point I had no idea who is dead, who is alive and what the hell is going on. Worse yet - it is confusing - I had no idea why Bale's character didn't just arrest Baby Face at first ocasion, I had no idea why Dillinger was so psyched about Billie and many other things.
It is my understanding that the movie is following closely what really happened but some scenes in the film were so ridiculous I actually exhaled "Wtf?!" - when Dillinger walks into police departament to the room filled with his pictures and nobody stops him or when Billie is arrested and he just wanders around dozens of policemen with gun in his hand.
The music was fantastic but it was terribly used - I felt like they played "Ten million slaves" and Billie Holiday's songs on repeat. The shaky hand-held camera made it even more annoying. However, I did enjoy the shootout scenes, which were very reallistic.
But the acting in the movie is wonderful - Cotillard created very strong character, Depp wasn't pulling off any of his old tricks and was very cool in his role and Bale was as always terrific - his character didn't get much development but Christian is one of truly few actors who can give outstanding performance when the script sucks.
One more thing - when the movie ended I nearly said to my friend - "finally! Bale made it unharmed through entire movie!" but I couldn't - a line appeared saying "agent melvin purvis left fbi a year later. Then he took his own life". Damnit, Christian! do a romantic comedy where u live for a change?