I thought this was a good movie, but not a great one.

On the great side, Johnny Depp’s performance was brilliant. The sets, clothing, atmosphere were all well done. The dude playing the agent from Texas was great – and I loved his (kind) lie at the end. Marion Cotillard was wonderful and it was so nice to see her not looking like Edith Piaf on screen! 🙂

On the not as great side, he winds up in jail way too soon. The audience hasn’t been given enough time to know the gang, to know the politics of dealing with the other mobsters. It’s like just as the action was getting good… I thought that was a bad decision in terms of timing. A lot of the dramatic tension was lost after that. And there were a bunch of scenes that I thought felt too flat (and clearly flatter than they were intended). Not enough tension / somewhat balanced out by Depp’s bravura performance, but not entirely.

As Dad said after a re-watch of Point Break: Now there‘s a movie about bank robbers and an obsessive agent that pursues them plus a little romance –Michael Mann, take note.