Let's set this straight, right from the start: Though updated technically, this movie is no more "real" in the contemporary sense than were the gangster flicks from Warner Brothers back in the 30s. And that's not at all bad. It's old Warner Brothers wine in new Universal Studios bottles.
Thanks to years of entertaining with fast action, tough "Miami Vice" TV series, director Michael Mann has learned how to do what good film makers do best: present "reality" in cinematic terms, creatively utilizing everything from hand held camera to lighting to careful control over dramatically inventive action, script & talent.
If there is any improvisational dialogue, it's not obvious. Script writers Mann, Ronan Bennett & Ann Biderman have tight control over what their characters say; it's Mann's direction that brings out the best in how his actors utilize their lines and how they present their actions in tensely created situations. "What do you do?" asks a woman. Dillinger's reply, "I rob banks."
The rules for intense drama have not changed. Though Mann employs modern techniques - shooting digital, playing with volume (which often vacillates from loud to a whisper within a single phrase; better turn your hearing aids up or you'll lose 90% of what's being said), etc. - all to update the movie without losing the tension & sense of good crime drama.
Since there's little surprise in the John Dillinger story, it behooves Mann to use all the cinematic tricks on hand to make the nearly 2 1/2 hour film exciting, and he does it well.
We meet Dillinger (Johnny Depp) as he is brought from temporary freedom to prison, only to escape along with inmates in a well orchestrated plan. From there on, we follow the gang through a series of cat/mouse games with the law - (with Melvin Purvis [Christian Bale] as their nemesis), made famous for his having gunned down Pretty Boy Floyd. Dillinger is his next hoped-for victory, but first there are the bank robberies followed by near captures, one after another around the Midwest, with Purvis & team getting ever closer, finally arriving at the infamous confrontation in front of a Chicago movie theater.
There's also a love story between the most wanted robber & a spirited hat check woman (Marion Cotillad).
Through all this, Elliot Goldenthal's rich score, sparingly but appropriately present, is more than adequate to underline the action; while the camerawork divides its time between impressive long shots - the opening sequence at the first prison under a pristine blue sky, the following bank robbery shot from above watching the crime being committed in a ballet-like choreography, a remarkable moonlit shootout at a Wisconsin lodge & in surrounding woods - to extreme close-ups, often lingered on interminably to draw attention to unspoken action.
Depp is as under control as ever, with hawkish stare, looking in fedora very much like the photos we've seen of Dillinger. Bale as well, revealing little in expression yet telegraphing much with slight variations. Cotillard is at her best in scenes alone, growing from the ordinary but beautiful carefree lady to a woman reduced to elegiac despair. The entire cast down to minor characters, thanks to Mann's tight direction, is equally powerful - and that includes Billy Crudup in a brief but important role as lawman J. Edgar Hoover.
The film is overly long, takes forever to reach its expected conclusion, and could easily have been truncated by 20-minutes or more. Still, that final confrontation at the theatre (which lasts about 20-minutes) leaves a strong lasting impression.