Diwali in Munchen

I don’t know the exact figure of fellow countrymen in Munchen-a city renowned for its beer than the lack of a south-indian restaurant (Not that there are hardly any north-indian eateries), but few of us planned to make the most of whats doable for celebrating diwali. So, sans the few mandatory rituals on this festival of lights, such as the early morning oil bath, a temple trip, flipping through the various TV channels like a high strung cat, mom's cooking, feasting on the goodies from neighbours...rest was all in place. The steering committee members of the respective families colluded to make some lip-smacking sweets and savouries on a Friday, while Saturday afternoon was reserved for a get-together at a meeting hall. The highlight was the delicious dinner spread with the falooda and sweet beeda at the end. The obvious big miss was the intoxicating smell of cracker aftermath.

Diwali in Chennai is not complete without a trip to the theatres for at least one of the major releases. Not surprisingly, going to a movie is not laborious in these foreign shores as it in India. The downside of such a orderly trip in Munich is, you miss all the fun and fight to get the tickets, the absolute mayhem inside the Chennai theatres, and of course the assortment of 'desi' snacks and filter coffee during the break.  Of the 5 speculated releases, Aarmabam (A swordfish inspired set?) was the most hyped one and like a death row inmate walking the green mile, I knew what was coming - it didn’t help that I had seen 'Captain Phillips' just couple of days ago.  The biggest gripe started obviously with the music and the least one was the holes in the screenplay, which were bigger than the ones created in the bullet vest by the villains' guns (the movie's whole premise is based on scandal in procurement of bullet vests for the police force). The key actors/actresses:

Thala Ajith - If the editor were to single out Ajith's footage, around 80% of that would be in super-slo-mo. He has however aged gracefully and is the george clooney equivalent with his salt-pepper looks

Arya - Big and tall, he has the best one-liners and provides the intended comic relief.

Nayanthara - One of the few actresses I used to like, but all she does nowadays is pout, wear glasses and try too hard to appear tall.

Tapsee - If only she knew to lip-sync and make an effort not to appear too-cute

Rana - Seems to be the guest-appearance material in tamil movies...and oh the coolers

Mahesh Manjrekar - Looked villainous enough, inspite of the tamil dubbing for his hindi dialogues

Verdict: "Aa-rambam" (Blade Runner)

Nevertheless, a very happy diwali in Munich I would say.

Unstoppable - A Denzel tour de force

It was a tossup between a 3^rd row from the front viewing of Harry Puttar against the charisma of Denzel Washington in “Unstoppable” form from the back rows.  One dude was pretty hung up on seeing the former even at the cost of the rest of the gang suffering the towering screen presence of Daniel Radcliffe from very close quarters. Few plates of egg chilli and tandoori chicken helped us pacify him and finally he did come around to see Tony Scott’s “Unstoppable” at Inox, Jayanagar.

I have been accused (albeit unfairly) of dragging my classmates to proven blockbusters such as Inception and Shutter Island, which they didn’t appreciate the least bit. It is a different matter that these movies called for undivided attention during the screen time and we mostly went for night shows following late evening classes/exams. Few of us dozed off, and few were in inebriated condition. And I get blamed for all that!!

Thankfully, this true story (based on events in 2001 in Ohio) of a train on the loose (Train # 777) in Pennsylvania proved to be a no-brainer from the plot perspective. The story begins with two railroad employees unwittingly unleashing a train carrying toxic and combustible content that progressively gains speed and is headed for a disaster within the city limits of Penn state. Denzel Washington, a veteran, and Chris Pine, the understudy, are seen ferrying cargo in another train somewhere in other part of Southern Pennsylvania. The two don’t get along too well, which is further compounded by Chris adding unwarranted additional coaches to the end of the train that proves to be an inflection point in the storyline. Meanwhile, Rosarie Dawson, the railroad control room supervisor, tries to reason with her boss Kevin Dunn not to attempt derailing 777, based on Denzel’s counsel. 

The duo of Denzel and Chris, attempt an overtly ambitious plan of chasing down the hurtling 777 by travelling at incredible speeds of up to 80mph in their lone engine coach. There is the usual family heart strings attached, running on top of the train, and near death experiences for the lead pair. While the movie is replete with clichéd dialogues and twists, the performance of the lead protagonists, coupled with some spectacular cinematography of the wilderness and winter of Penn state manages to engage the audience for the entire duration. The movie doesn’t have a very intelligent plot, instead relies on the visual impact and sound effects to make up for the predictable story line. If you are one of the "Independence Day" fans and don’t mind enjoying popcorn thrill ride, Unstoppable is a must watch.

Shutter Island - Sans the review

The much anticipated Shutter Island put me to sleep in the plush seat of PVR Cinemas in Bangalore. I have never gone this long (2 months) without catching up on a movie and the excitement post all the trailers and the personal guarantee from one of my close buddies on the quality of the movie (He had watched it 4 times already and was planning on watching it for the 5^th time @ Sathyam Cinemas). The momentum for the movie built up gradually, with no takers initially, but I ended up making 7 separate reservations for 17 of my friends. The look of the girl behind me in the automated ticket printout queue at Forum Mall conveyed the message that I was crackpot to have done so many reservations when I could have done it in one shot. Forum mall was abuzz on the Friday night and it was just good to be out in the normal world after a 1.5 month hiatus. I tried hard not to give up on the movie more than once, but such was the plot and the flashing delusional images, that I doubted my then existence on the face of the earth. It was a night show post a hard exhausting week, and the pit-stop at firangi paani didn’t help matters much.  The initial euphoria of getting out the campus and venturing into a mall died down, thanks to Martin Scorcese’s convoluted plot that seemed to me as a rehash of earlier movies of this genre. The most insulting impact came from one of my classmates who along with his walked out in the middle of the movie, and then later paid for the tickets as well!! The great guy that he was, in order to reduce my misery to tolerable levels, remarked that he liked the movie but had pressing reasons to stage a walkout.

New Year/Avatar/Kokum

Compared to last year’s New Year Eve in Kathmandu, this year’s celebration in Chennai was more comfortable and enjoyable. First off, we got the official go ahead to bunk half a day’s office – my colleagues at work along with their families descended on Sathyam for the matinee show of Avatar-3D. The chaos called “corporate booking” with Sathyam was a different matter altogether. However, thanks to a complete team effort we did manage it pull it off.


The movie itself was quite spectacular: the visual imagery, as written in every quarter, is breathtaking in the first half and the second half is more action and some loosely scripted plot and dialogues (remember “300” – all that bravado backed by some inept acting and very poor speeches). The toddlers in the audience were awestruck and weren’t scared, and hence made it easier for their dads to watch the movie in whole. Even though, as is my custom, I missed the first few minutes, I picked up the futuristic plot (whatever there was) which talks about a distant planet – Pandora – habituated by Na’vi people. The US armed forces led by Col.Miles (Stephen Lang) is commissioned to extract a mineral – Unobtainium, from that planet. He enlists a paraplegic ex-marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) to aid Dr.Augustine (Cameron favorite – Sigourney Weaver) and her team, with the intention of persuading the Na’vis eventually to settle for a negotiation with humans with regards to the giving up their sacred place which houses the mineral. So Jake and Augustine’s minds take on the incarnation (aka Matrix) of Na’vis to befriend and gain their trust in an effort to avoid the potential mayhem. The love angle is provided in the form of Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who is entrusted with the job of training Jake in hopping trees and taming wild aerial dragon-like creatures in Pandora. As love blossoms between Jake and Neytiri, Col.Miles runs out of patience and calls for bombarding Pandora and usurping Unobtainium. But Jake and Augustine by now are totally against the military showdown and try their level best to persuade the Colonel against it, but to no avail. The second half is all about flying battleships, dragons, warriors on horses, big elephant like creatures stampeding and some very badly written call-for-war dialogues. As one would expect, its triumph of good over evil, albeit the loss of precious human and Na’vi lives. Cameron is the big bad splurge master, equivalent of our own Kollywood Shankar, when it comes to spending a fortune in film-making. But at the end of it all, Avatar-3D is an enjoyable fantasy laden action adventure, set in a Utopian planet.


Post the movie, a splinter group (8 out of 38) made its way to ID in Sathyam. I had my share of pre-dinner appetizers, while majority had their full-dinner. I had few other friends to catch up for dinner and after some serious thought in deciding the dining place, we settled for Kokum (Another oriental group specialty restaurant). The restaurant is located in MRC Nagar and is pretty cut-off from the city’s hum-drum. The restaurant specializes in predominantly Kerala cuisine, but had fair share of Goan and Mangalorean delicacies as well. Buffet, priced at a princely sum of 545INR, is a very rare feature of this place and they had one, owing to the New Year ’s Eve. I checked out their ala carte menu and figured that the buffet had a representation of the main dishes from that menu. So the eventual price of the buffet works out to be cheaper if one were to try out those dishes from the menu. The place is a well decorated (just like any other oriental group restaurant ), the food is authentic and really good, and has luxury apartment complexes in its vicinity. Apparently Hotel Leela, being constructed there, is set to be inaugurated by Dec 2010. We also met few third party acquaintances who happened to work for Nila ventures (holding company of Hotel Leela) and were currently residing in the apartment opposite to that of Dhoni’s (he bought that flat for Rs 2.crore).

Post dinner, it was drive back home at around 10 PM, by when the roads were already being battered by few crazy drivers in bikes and cars in spite of the heavy patrolling (in numbers alone, not by their ability to chase down the offenders). Back home, I popped in the “Eagle has landed” DVD……

Happy New Year to everyone !!

3 Idiots - Not too close to the script, but pretty decent..

Chetan Bhagat might have had more heartburn than just for not being credited at the beginning of the movie (he apparently took umbrage at being mentioned in the end credits). The essence of "Five Point Someone" novella has been diluted to a big extent in "3 Idiots". However, this movie belongs to the category of films that are to be watched for the director, cast, and marketing blitz.

I can’t comment on the first few minutes (including the ragging scene which is now the raison d’être for someone to slap a notice on the movie producers) which as usual, I missed. Farhan (Madhavan) is the voice over for the narrative sequences in the movie, which chronicles the lives of 3 Idiots (Farhan, Raju-Sharman Joshi and Rancchoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad - Aamir) predominantly in their college (ICE and not IIT) and a little bit post their graduation. Professor Viru Sahastrabudhhe (Boman Irani), the head of the college, gives an exaggerated, but likeable, performance as a strict custodian of the exam-cram methodology. Aamir, along with Maddy and Sharman, predictably, tries to foster a feel-good factor and emphasize the importance of seeking knowledge without mugging up the textbooks. Some of the gags in the movie are genuinely funny, the most notable one being the time when Aamir outsmarts a random supervisor who declines to accept his answer sheets. But as many people have noted, majority of the antics are predictable and the cloying goodness is far removed from one what sees in real life. Pia (Kareena), Prof Viru's daughter, comes as a fresh addition to the rather overgrown college-goers.

Rajkumar Hirani has tried real hard to keep the goodness of his reputation intact, while also striving hard to do to justice to the original book. Aamir, quite surprisingly, and Sharman are made to look the part of the college crowd, while Maddy tries to muscle his way in. The song "All Izz Well" looks much better with the visuals, but the other songs are rather insipid. The plot involving Aamir's growing up, his achievements at the end of the movie, and Prof Viru's elder daughter giving birth in the college premises, seem forced and at times impractical. The message of the movie pretty mocks at the mentality of our education system and does succeed to a very small extent. After all the movie is intended to follow the Munnabhai franchise. Watch it for the laughs, Aamir, Kareena and reminiscing college days.

Vettaikkaran - The Vettai has truly begun

Watching a Vijay movie on the 2nd day of release doesn’t equate to the euphoria one feels when watching a Rajini movie even on the 2nd week of its release. However, I went to the movie wanting to experience the hoots and whistles, which duly unfolded when "Ilaya Thalapathi's name" flashed on the screen. The excitement moved up by few notches when Vijay's clear image gradually emerged from his hazy silhouette. And the 7:15 AM start on a Saturday and Rs.100 ticket was money well spent, just for the decibel levels inside the theatre.

The story gains rapid pace as Vijay sets off running behind a corrupt and drunken cop's police vehicle and just as when we think he has given up, we find him resuming the chase with a Stetson hat on a horse - the most widely advertised poster of "Vettaikaran". As expected, he confronts the cop and dishes out a rather short and sans overtly jarring punch dialogues (Compared to his recent duds, he has reduced the punches). He plays the role of "Police" Ravi - a struggling student (he apparently has tried scaling XII exam thrice with no luck) who aspires to emulate his idol Devaraj IPS (Sri Hari) in becoming an upright police aapicer. The introductory song of Vijay received maniacal response from the audience and the peppy number also features his son towards the end. The introduction of Delhi Ganesh as his father in the movie evoked muted peals of laughter, for reasons known to our gang.

After somehow scaling XII, Vijay goes to Chennai to enroll in a college and opts to drive an auto-rickshaw to fund his studies. On his way to Chennai he encounters Susheela (Anushka) and her grandmother (Sukumari), and is bewitched by the heroine's beauty. Now comes the time to expose the scary looking villains one-by-one. Chella (Ravi Shankar) looks really menacing and gets his way with whichever lady he sets his eyes on. Unfortunately, he lusts after Vijay's college mate and so follows the first action sequence between the hero and villain. After being beaten to pulp, the villain's dad (Salim Ghouse - of Vetrivizha and Chinna Kounder fame) takes over spilling evil on screen. What follows is Vettaikaran (Vijay)'s quest for hunting down the Mirugam (Salim Ghouse). There is a clear explanation on these lines to justify the title - "Vettaikaran".

The dialogues are preachy only in places and the punch dialogues seem to have been inserted to spur the massive hysteria he commands with his huge fan base. Vijay Antony has sensed the pulse of what Vijay means to his fans, and the peppy numbers have accentuated the hero's reputation. One should find the costume designer and stylist for Vijay in the pleasant duet - "Chinna Thamirai, and ask in all earnest, the reason for the outrageous makeup.”Puli Urumudhu" and "Karigalan" (He has added some really astounding moves in this song) are the other good numbers. Vijay has managed to carry the movie with his screen-presence, action and dance sequences, and even the lighter moments. Anushka literally dwarfs her co-stars with her height, and hence her contrived dance movements appear magnified. Sayaji Shinde - the bad cop with comic timing, and VM Hanifa and Sathyan - Vijay's sidekicks, and Srinath - the dude from Vijay's college, add to the comedy track.

On pure entertainment quotient - this movie scores over Aadhavan and with Sun Picture's astute marketing should most likely help Vijay lose the bad reputation he has gained at the box office and with the masses too (The email forwards relating to Vettaikaran are testimony to this). Apparently the "Vettai" runs for 2 hr 54 mins, and the second half hurtles towards a predictable and violent climax. The villains and stuntmen in Tamil movies sporting those full white veshtis folded up to their knees, with aruvals and similar hacking weapons appear to be way too menacing for family audiences. Guess its high time the directors and casting group take note of this.

Verdict - Definitely worth watching (Provided one sets aside any positive expectations about the movie, and just goes only with the intention of getting entertained. That means, be ready to suspend your disbelief)

Aadhavan - KSR's Killing Machine

OK, I had to write this. Precious waste of time with "Aadhavan". Thought Surya was done with mundane films after "Vel". Whatever maybe the reason for him choosing this script, still quite unpardonable. The movie might go on to attract A,B and C audiences, but has eroded the stature of Surya to some extent. Every character, except that of Surya and Vadivelu, stood out like a sore thumb - the super artificial Nayantara, the movie storywriter Ramesh Kanna ( guess he lost his marbles for good ), the washed-up Sarojadevi, the jokers aka villains - Shayaji Shinde and Rahul dev, and finally....the super comical Anandbabu ( son of the great Nagesh ). KS Ravikumar sure has joined the league of Perarasu with this flick. The less said about the story, screenplay and direction, the better.

I just cant think of any positives about this movie. 3 of the better songs which sounded good, have been now corrupted with the sorry picturization of the same. The songs were painfully inserted at inopportune moments to provide the so called relief from the hopelessness of the movie. The background score was a scare too. Every movie of KSR now seems to be pre-dated in a regressive manner by a 5 year margin. We sure did laugh at the brainless plot and some genuine comical moments involving Vadivelu, and were really surprised to see one guy sitting ahead of us filming the movie on his mobile. Wonder what he intended to do, given the fact that the movie was dumb and an insult to the audience . The knockout punch was KSR making the depressing appearance and this time, he dragged in the producer for good measure. Please save your money and time, dont watch "Aadhavan". I shudder at the thought of Surya's next flick being wielded by the "Aruvaal and Tata Sumo" friendly Hari. Post this tragedy, we sought the temporary solace of "Amethyst".

Verdict - Must Avoid.

Unnaipol Oruvan - The remake

Me and my dad dont agree on things normally, but we agreed that the hindi version - "A Wednesday" was better than the tamil remake - "Unnaipol Oruvan". Naseeruddin Shah is good at underplaying his roles and the "common man" billing fit him to the tee in the movie. The biggest disadvantage the tamil version had to do with the aura surrouding the two super stars - Kamal and Mohanlal. While it was a very subdued performance from the former, the malayalam star played his role with aplomb. Casting of Lakshmi as the chief secretary and the May Madham kid as the IIT dropout with his forced accent was a real letdown. Adding Santhanam Bharathi as one of the mercenaries diluted the seriousness of the context to a certain extent. The two police officers aiding Mohanlal, were too fit to be believed to be from the Tamilnadu police. Kamal for all his creative skills, is often culpable of trying to be too preachy in few of his movies ( his trademark...aaa....aaaaa....was missed in this movie ); luckily in this one he doesnt go over-board on that count.

Shurti Hassan's debut score is pretty average and I believe the rocker image of hers is evident in her music too. Believe Kamal did strain his vocal cords for an operatic segment of the background score.

Strong points : short duration, muted patriotism, no glorification of the superstars, no songs
Weak points : mis-casting, the reason behind Kamal's reason to do what he did in the movie isnt as convincing as one in Hindi, dubbing was out of place in few segments

Still a very good movie, compared to the punch dialogue laden fare from Kollywood.

Kaminey - the lovable one

Going for a night show at Sathyam has its own charm and ease - the road back is not so fraught with the unnerving traffic. So it was me, vasanth and his friends. Wonder why Sathyam wont have hot coffee during night hours, doesnt quite make sense to just have only cold coffee especially for the night shows. Anyways, enough of the complaining part.

The only other movie I watched that of Shahid was "Jab We Met", which was Imitiaz Ali's debut as director, and surprisingly I liked the movie. Never thought too much of Kareena and Shahid - the latter seemed to be quite happy to be called as the pocked sized Shahrukh, not just for the hamming bit but even in the unkempt hair and over the top antics. From the first frame in Kaminey, it promised to be a mad caper, with one Shahid twin lisping and the other stammering. Vishal Bharadwaj, director-music director-singer-screenplya, doesnt take too long to sketch the main characters. And come the twins, come the flashback - so we are shown rather in a short burst how the twins grew to hate each other. Charlie ( the lisp bro ) says "fortcut" for "shortcut" and carries off his part as a wannabe horse racing bookie with consistency, while Guddu stammers his way through the role of a NGO activist. Add in Priyanka as "Sweety" as the emotional Marathi spewing love of Guddu who gets "knocked up" in her inebriated moment with him. The script writer of Taare Zameen Par, Amol Gupte, plays the venomous Marathi devout "Bhope", an aspiring politician who hates the sight of Mumbai immigrants. He also happens to be Sweety's brother and does everything possible to stop Guddu's marriage to Sweety and eventually knock him off too. Tenzing Nima plays Tashi, the remorseless drug dealer, who is after a guitar filled with cocaine which accidently lands in the lap of Charlie. Few of my friends were disoriented by the camera work and rapid edits, especially the strobe filled "Dhan Tana Tan" song, which tries to bring forth the potent mix of drugs and loud music. At the intermission, the corrupt police backed by Tashi get hold of Guddu, while Bhope gets hold of Charlie. A rendezvous on the local mumbai train is staged to exchange the guitar and the twins, with each group planning to outwit the other.

The second half gives scope for the audience to engage in the love hate relationship between the twins and the visceral scheming of Bhope and Tashi who leave no stone unturned to meet their personal agendas. Add to this mix a bookie gang of bongs, who employ Charlie and have a fascination to spend on assault weapons, and wear their hearts on the sleeve. The movie moves at a rapid pace and we end for an "all for guns and drugs" type shootout including police, bhope, bongs and tashi with their respective cronies. The baddies kill each other as expected, and at the end of the movie we see the sweet couple Sweety and Guddu ending up their own pair of twins, while Charlie goes after the bigger riches in the bets on horse stables.

All in all a good gangster movie, with a superb sound track and intense acting by the cast. A must watch, even if one is not a big fan of the dark genre of Vishal Bharadwaj. 4 out of 5 !!

The week that was

For all those hardcore followers of Sivagiri :
Sivagiri - The Crusader

Three issues have been in news over the last week, which probably have garnered more news bytes, second only to the swine flu. Instant hit has been BJP's "over the top - let me be first type reaction" to Jaswant's book on Jinnah; Then comes the media-savvy and smug "My name is Khan....Shah rukh(ja) khan"; and finally "Kaminey" and "Kandaswamy" ( I am afraid the early reports have called the tamil flick a dud ).



BJP is in a downward spiral, with party idealogy ( we are told they are still are not sure what it is ) being relegated to the background and LK Advani being marginalized even at a dottering age of 82. All the hoopla around mild and moderate ex-BJPer Jaswant Singh, his book and his subsequent explusion smacks of BJP's muddled thinking post Vajpayee era. Their internal mess has took roots post the lok sabha electoral debacle. Every credible political commentator vouches that none from the 20 core party members of BJP might have read the 600 something page book on Jinnah, leave alone reading between the lines. Their reaction is being ridiculed on the basis that it is Congress who indirectly are at the receiving end in the book, owing to Nehru's support for the two nation theory; Sardar Patel has not been shown as the troublemaker as is being played out in BJP circles. Jinnah purportedly has been shown toeing the logical line of seeking a separate nation owing to unfavourable bias towards the minority community. The popular verdict on who is the hero and who is the villain in the book, has not been announced as yet. Will wait for that....until then hope BJP doesnt shoot itself all over, while Congress stands by and waits for its turn to hog the limelight. That would mean lesser expenditure for the next elections - something our politicians wouldnt prefer.



SRK has taken his smugness and confidence to greater heights with his over-the-top reaction to his frisking at the NJ airport. While most of them feel that it is a publicity stunt by King Khan, he defended the same by saying that "My name is Khan" will be done only in 8-9 months; we have to give the man the benefit of doubt. He denies that he didnt feel offended because the authorities deliberately failed to acknowledge who he was, but still believe his ego got to him. But we have to appreciate the man for the kind of media empire he has built since his "Hi Chaps, Fauji" days. Congress MP Ambika Soni did put the Congress on the wrong foot when she called for an ill-advised tit-for-tat policy. She did her bit to get some news bytes, alas no match for BJP's "Quick Gun Murugan" reaction.




Kaminey, for all the negative connotations to the word, has been getting thumbs up, unanimously from all quarters. Shahid, post his "Jab We Met" performance, has managed to shrug off the tag of SRK wannabe. Vishal Bharadwaj, seen as a desi version of Tarantino, doesnt mix too much pop-candy in his serious movies - Omkara was a dark drama loosely based on Othello - and now Kaminey. Cant wait to watch this flick.



On the other hand, "Chiyan" Vikram's superhero caper Kanthaswamy is of a mind numbing length of 3hr 20 mins. The length wouldnt have mattered if it were a Lord of the Rings or a Ben Hur, instead the early reviews have been very disappointing. Shriya probably will walk off with the eye-candy honours while Vikram and Suzi Ganesan will have to get over the disappointment. It still might go onto rake in the moolah, but am sure the lead actor's and director's reputation have taken a hit. Wont watch this one, unless dragged into the theatres by unforeseen fateful forcing by faithful friends.

Public Enemies - A short take

We caught up with "Public Enemies" at Serene/Sathyam for the friday night show. Michael Mann's previous best ones have been - Heat, The Insider, Manhunter and The last of the Mohicans - and so the obvious expectations were set for another pot-boiler. With Johnny Depp and Christian Bale thrown into the mix, the movie sure should have been an exhilarating ride.
Loosely based on the real life story of John Dillinger ( Johnny Depp ), who with Baby face Nelson and Alvin Karpis wreaked havoc with bank robberies around the great depression era ( 1929 - 1934 ), the movie sets the tone with a prison breakaway by Dillenger and his cohorts. Agent Melvin Pervis ( Christian Bale ) enters the screen blazing down Pretty Boy Floyd ( Channing Tatum in a cameo ) in the woods. The scene shifts to Edgar Hoover commissioning the FBI and appointing Pervis as the lead detective to hunt down Dillinger and the likes. The rest of the movie is the cat and mouse game played out between the agents and the robbers, with the law gaining the upper hand as the movie progresses. One by one, Dillinger's associates are gunned down and he is finally left to protect his love interest which ultimately brings about his downfall. The movie is interspersed with Dillinger's love interest - Billie Frechette ( Marion Cotillard ) and 3 clear sequences of bank robberies and an additional prison getaway.

Highlights :
The period setting, gun fights and stake outs.
Handy cam style chase sequences
Johnny Depp's simmering ruthlessness and occasional wisecracks

Letdowns :
Underutilized Bale
Slow pace of the movie
A rather weak background score
The dubbing could have been better. Dialogues appeared muffled in an effort to recreate the southern US accent of that period.

The movie overall doesnt live upto what we have come to expect from Michael Mann, but still delivers in patches. Worth one time watch. Rating - 6/10