Metacritic-Rezensionen

Milius filters his story through countless B movies and detective stories, indirectly paying homage to all the different media that have contributed to the Dillinger legend, but keeps things the right side of nostalgia.

Dillinger is the film, we may speculate, that John Milius was born to make: violent, tough, filled with guns and blood.

This rough, lurid, pointedly un-preachy work of macho outlaw cinema, one of the best of the many John Dillinger movies, deserves to be better known.

Writer-director Milius's brilliant directorial debut presents the Depression era gangster and 'Public Enemy Number One' John Dillinger (Warren Oates) as a social outsider and self-made legend. Oates is at the top of his form... Ben Johnson is equally good as his nemesis, FBI Agent Melvin Purvis, and Harry Dean Stanton and Richard Dreyfuss lead a fine supporting cast. [12 Oct 2003, p.9]

Pace is sometimes reduced during events sandwiched in between actual gunfire sequences of Dillinger’s career, but there can be no criticism of Milius’ ability to keep such action sequences at top-heat.

In making his debut as a director, Mr. Milius gives us a "Dillinger" that is fascinating for its speed, action and firepower. But as character studies of decidedly interesting types out of explosive history, "Dillinger" shoots blanks most of the time.

A masterful performance by Warren Oates in the title role, but the film emerges as trite and hollow anyway. [19 Aug 1990, p.4]

Director Milius is wholly unconcerned with portraying the criminals of the 1930s as they really were, mixing up facts and fiction in a tasteless stew of violence, blood, and human gore.