Film Review: DILLINGER (1973, John Milius)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 107 minutes.
Tag-line: "...he was the gangster's gangster. "
Notable Cast or Crew: Warren Oates (BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA), Harry Dean Stanton, John P. Ryan (IT'S ALIVE, RUNAWAY TRAIN), Geoffrey Lewis (MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL), Richard Dreyfuss, Cloris Leachman (YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN), Michelle Phillips (SHAMPOO), Ben Johnson (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW). Directed and written by John Milius (RED DAWN, FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER, BIG WEDNESDAY, CONAN THE BARBARIAN).
Best one-liner: "Okay, boys; let's go make a withdrawal."

John Milius, with his "men's men" (or "gangster's gangsters" in this case) and bloody shootouts, is often compared to Sam Peckinpah. And while the comparison is apt, most are content to pin him down as merely a Second Amendment-lovin' reactionary, and leave it at that. But there's a humanist inside Milius, a lover of nature, a quiet observer of humanity's (violent) inclinations. And in this respect, I would compare him equally to Terrence Malick. (And also in their propensity to use Harry Dean Stanton, Warren Oates, Nick Nolte, and windswept, amber waves of grain.) DILLINGER, Milius' feature film (directorial) debut, is an excellent fusion of 30's gangster pic and the existential 70's 'road trip drama.' Oates' Dillinger is smarmy, full of hubris, and ultimately an asshole ("this is gonna be one of the big days of your life..."): it's brutality, to be sure, but it's brutality with élan.

Harry Dean Stanton is a gang member with a bad attitude, a giant sombrero, and brimming pathos; Richard Dreyfuss is appropriately psychotic as Baby Face Nelson; and Ben Johnson is steely and appropriately detached as Melvin Purvis.

What a lineup: Oates, Stanton, Lewis, Ryan.

The mantra for the film (quite literally at one point) becomes "hard times"- Dillinger doesn't have to do much conniving to find willing accomplices or make a prison warden take his "cut" of a robbery made during an escape. As a Dust Bowl ragamuffin fittingly observes, the only difference between the bank robbers and the FBI is that you "Have to go to school to be a G-Man." There's no joy to be had in seeing anyone get shot here, be it lawbreaker or lawman; characters scream in agony as they die, and no one dies easy. It's a film full of unexpected emotional weight- Dillinger's homecoming to a resigned, sad, tolerant father, or Harry Dean Stanton intoning "things ain't workin' out for me today" in a way that truly no one else could. Four stars.

And stick around after the end credits to hear J. Edgar Hoover denouncing the film (in true a-hole form).

-Sean Gill

Film Review: W. (2008, Oliver Stone)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 129 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Josh Brolin, Ellen Burstyn, James Cromwell, Richard Dreyfuss, Scott Glenn, Toby Jones, Stacy Keach, Noah Wyle, Elizabeth Banks, Bruce McGill, Jeffrey Wright, Thandie Newton, Marley Shelton.
Tag-line: "Get ready."
Best one-liner(s): "There's an old saying in Tennessee- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee- that says, fool me once, shame on- shame on you. Fool me- you can't get fooled again." (also said by the actual President Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002)

"Mr. President, what place do you think you will have in history?" "History?... In history we'll all be dead!" The road to hell is paved with good intentions, sustained by voraciously-devoured turkey club sandwiches and bowls of pretzels, and washed down with buckets of Jack Daniels (this film has got to set a record for Jack Daniels consumption) and eventually a bottle of O'Douls. Oliver Stone's W. is equal parts picaresque, grotesque, Great American Tragedy, and farce. It's just a pity that it had to play out on the world's stage with all of us as spectators and the fates of nations hanging in the balance. Josh Brolin is magnificent as W., and deserves all the accolades he receives for his tragicomic portrayal. Not receiving as much praise, but equally deserving, are Scott Glenn (who plays Rumsfeld as an unhinged, dazed sociopathic old man), Stacy Keach (as Bush's spiritual mentor and head of a burgeoning Texas megachurch), and Ellen Burstyn (as the equally bullheaded but slightly classier Barbara Bush). W. is defined by his food: removing the lettuce from his sandwich during Cheney's E. coli metaphor about WMDs, choking on a pretzel and nearly losing his life, chewing with his mouth open during most first impressions, and giving up pecan pie as a sacrifice for America's bravest giving up their lives. Stone's W. is not depicted as an evil man; instead he's an easily frustrated good old boy who was well-suited for a life of eating snacks, watching the game, playing fetch with dogs, and going on vacation- but not for holding the reins of a nation. Stone takes a bold first step in analyzing a man whom history will have no choice but to condemn, and there's hardly a thing about it that rings false- a true achievement for a film that's largely conjecture.

-Sean Gill