I just returned from a screening of PE in LA—WHOA! I attended with my DH and some other JDR members, along with about 400 other people. It was a packed house and even though the flier didn’t mention the name of the film, I think that most attending knew it was PE-lol.
It’s late and I’ll post more tomorrow as I’m sure the other JDR people will as well. Just some first impressions—ALL the acting was excellent. Johnny portrayed Dillinger “just right” according to my DH who isn’t as biased as I am Loved the paring of him with Cotilliard–she was excellent too and a nice complement to Johnny’s Dillinger.
***WARNING: SOME SPOILERS–***
Little Bohemia shootout was great—
Johnny does dance(somewhat-lol) and believe it or not, he also sings!!
The scenery and period authenticity really comes through in the film—I felt transported back to the 30’s. Great job by all the extras in the film, too.
CBale was in the film more than I expected, but he was good.
Michael Mann was there and just milling around in the lobby afterwards so my DH told him how much we enjoyed the film.
The film runs about 2 1/2 hours approx.
I thought the ending was very well done–we didn’t see closing credits.
Music was very good throughout—30’s type mainly.
Watch for Johnny do some great action stuff—now I’m sure he had a stunt double in parts, but it “seems” he did A LOT of the action stuff just based on some close up shots. One part to look for is Dillinger vaulting over the bank counter during one of the bank robberies………
THis is just my opinion–I thought the acting all around excellent! Even the smaller parts were so well acted and just seamless. For me, that means that everyone was so believable and it was like a time transfer back to the 1930s. I feel that JMBolger should be very proud of his work in the film. He portrayed Zarkovich(sp?) just as I pictured from the BBurrough’s book. We didn’t get to see a lot of character development with many of he characters, but you got what was needed to move the story along. Of course, Zarko wasn’t my favorite character as he helped set up Dillinger-lol, but JMB played him “spot on” in my opinion.
As for the film needing “tightening”—possibly. I’m not sure what else could be cut, but then again, I know the story so it wasn’t difficult for me to follow. I noticed a few camera shakes which may have been unintentional( or maybe intentional?) The gunfire is very loud which I didn’t mind, but some might think it too loud.
One aspect I loved was the feeling that as a viewer, you were right there in the action—during the shootouts especially—bullets flying everywhere!
There are some parts where “dramatic license” took over, such as Baby Face Nelson’s death. He dies differently in the film than what actually happened, however, the way it was done in the film helped keep the action going.
DIllinger’s shooting scene, especially for JD fans, will be tough–very emotional for me. If you haven’t seen the old film Manhattan Melodrama w/Clark Gable, try to see it before seeing PE. This is the film Dillinger was watching before he was shot. It plays an important part in the film in my opinion.
Some cuts that I DID notice were—no plastic surgery scenes, no Karpis arrest.
I loved the beginning of the movie and I *think* it was done the way they did it on purpose. I know my DH especially like the beginning, too.
I agree about the R rating—I’ve seen worse blood and guts on the TV show LOST, but still, the language itself would make it R rated, too.
As for the Dillinger/Sage part—I noticed that too, but I think they wanted to downplay his romantic involvement with anyone but Billie as that held the “emotional heartstrings” impact of the film. Thanks for mentioning that because that stood out to me, too. What I saw in the earlier part of the film was just that Dillinger knew her because she had the prostitutes and that was the extent of their ‘friendly” relationship. The movie does take “dramatci license” in certain areas, but I thought it worked or else we would end up with a 5 hour film-lol!
