Back in the ‘70s, John Milius would’ve been a shoe-in Oscar nominee for “Best Director Most Likely to Instigate a Bar Brawl." His main competition probably would have been Walter Hill, which prompts me to ponder who would win if they fought each other. Of course, it goes without saying that if Sam Peckinpah showed up, he’d wiped the floor with both of ‘em.
But if Peckinpah was too drunk to throw-down that day, I’d put my money on Milius. After all, this is the guy who came up with “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning,” and his overall filmography as both writer and director is just bursting with thuggery and testosterone. One can’t help but suspect that part of him envies the characters he creates.
Take his directorial debut, for instance. Dillinger depicts the legendary gangster (played by Warren Oates) as cocky, remorseless, cold-blooded, and most tellingly, proud of his notoriety as a violent bank robber. Whether or not the film is historically accurate doesn’t matter…Milius’ admiration for his subject is obvious in every frame.
Though clearly inspired by the success of Bonnie & Clyde, there’s no attempt to romanticize (or even humanize) John Dillinger or the crew who runs with him. This episodic film is mostly driven by action, the narrative speeding from one robbery & gunfight to the next, with determined, cigar-chomping G-man Melvin Purvis (Ben Johnson) narrating his ongoing pursuit. One gets the impression that, if he couldn’t be Dillinger, Milius would be just as happy being Purvis…so long as he got to shoot somebody.
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| Warren displays his fondness for peppy showtunes. |
Considering its limited budget, Dillinger boasts good production design and authentic period detail. The action scenes are well executed and jarringly violent. And though this obviously ain’t a character study, the cast is effective in their roles. Oates is the standout, of course, depicting the titular antihero with more gusto than anyone else has before or since. Elsewhere, Johnson is amusingly stoic as Purvis, while a baby-faced Richard Dreyfuss (playing Babyface Nelson!) engages in some prime scenery chewing. Then there’s the indelible Harry Dean Stanton, providing most of the comic relief.
Brash, brutal and sensationalistic, Dillinger is movie that clearly loves its antagonists, and made with such panache that, for a brief time, so do we. As a director, John Milius would go on to bigger things, but this is his most purely entertaining film, mainly because it’s bursting with bad boy behavior…much like Milius himself.
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