Search - Dillinger on DVD

Public Enemy Number One

Steven Hellerstedt | 04/09/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Following Arthur Penn's 1967 hit `Bonnie and Clyde,' Hollywood enjoyed a brief fling with Depression-era gangsters. The free-wheeling Woodstock generation found something to like about the anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian, legendary outlaws of their parents' youth.

Legendary bank robber John Dillinger certainly fit the bill. In John Milius's DILLINGER we meet the title character, played by Warren Oates, at the height of his career. John Dillinger is a notorious character with enough wit to recognize he's doing the rubes a favor, of sorts, every time he holds up a bank. It gives those robbed something to talk about and remember. Anyway, Dillinger seemingly relies on efficient professionalism over firepower. At least he don't shoot lessen he's shot at, which is a sight better than gun happy thug Baby Face Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss,) who joins the gang mid-movie. And, as such things were measured back then, probably better than what we get from Dillinger hunting alpha G-Man Melvin Purvis (Ben Johnson). We get an awful lot of Purvis in this movie - he supplies the periodic voice over narration and gets about equal screen time with Oates. Milius would write the teleplay for 1974's `Melvin Purvis, G-MAN,' which starred another gruff voiced character action, Dale Robertson.

The parallel story telling works well enough, although Dillinger gets lost a time or two. We get to tag along with Purvis a few times when he has big showdown with public enemies, and they're very well handled. The Depression, which has figured prominently as a social setting and explanation for do-badders, is set deep in the background and isn't much of a factor. Dillinger, as he tells his girlfriend/common law wife Billie Frechette (Michelle Phillips, in her debut,) just always wanted to be a bank robber, and that was that. Towards the end the story does fall apart a bit. Dillinger disappears completely in the last act, which is dominated by Purvis's negotiations with the Lady in Red (Cloris Leachman as Anna Sage, the madam who arranged for Dillinger's capture outside a movie house in Chicago.)

Besides John Dillinger, Milius has either scripted, directed, or both movies on Geronimo, Teddy Roosevelt, Jeremiah Johnson and Judge Roy Bean. Legendary Americans all, and Milius is very much a `print the legend' director. Sometimes you get the feeling that if it doesn't lend itself to a photo op Milius isn't much interested in it. It makes for good action flicks, shaky history lessons, and frustration for those who like character development. Johnson (a good actor) and Oates (a very good actor) make their characters more compelling than written. After a big shootout (excitingly recreated in the movie) and his flight to Chicago Dillinger's life kind of fell apart. He'd separated from Billie and underwent plastic surgery. Perhaps because he thought the plastic surgery might confuse the audience - perhaps - Milius decided to ignore Dillinger in Chicago, save for Purvis's plot to capture him. Heck, I would have been happy with a whole movie, starring Oates, of course, about Dillinger in Chicago. Probably best suited for gangster movie fans, or fans of Ben Johnson and Warren Oates.
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"Please don't shoot me G-man!"

anomj7t7 | Quinton, Va United States | 11/01/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Films about historical events that play fast and loose with the facts usually get under my skin...big time.That aside,I must say that I really enjoyed this film, despite the fact it seemed to get very few of the essential facts right.Ben Johnson was miscast
Melvin Purvis as well as Harry Dean Stanton as Homer Van Meter, but both were great as always.Warren Oates is one heck of a character actor and as character actors go,can do no wrong(the man's a genius).The butchering job on the history was done,I assume,to facilitate a smoother narrative and keep the movies length from expanding into epic like proportions.The scene depicting Van Meter's demise was a brilliant piece of black humor(most obviously based on pages 123 and 124 of John Toland's "The Dillinger days")but in actuality the whole incident happened *before* the shootout at "Little Bohemia" and to an earlier gang member,James Jenkins(Van Meter bought the farm in St.Paul MN).A previous reviewer mentioned the length of the gun battles and couldn't have been more dead on...If that kind of battle had happened at the Little Bohemia lodge I think all of Rhinelander Wisconsin would have been destroyed!All done in the grand Hollywood tradition (think "Gunfight at the OK Corral") of padding an actual event to get the most mileage (and violence) out of it.This movie was great fun...Just don't delude yourself into believing you know the real story after viewing this film."