dreamland
REVIEWER: lyall carter
★★★
A teen bounty hunter is torn between helping or capturing a seductive fugitive bank robber hiding in his small town during the Great Depression.
Academy Award nominee Margot Robbie stars alongside Finn Cole ("Peaky Blinders") in this love story set amidst America's struggle during the Great Depression. Eugene Evans dreams of escaping his small Texas town when he discovers a wounded, fugitive bank robber (Robbie).
Torn between claiming the bounty for her capture and his growing attraction to the seductive criminal, Eugene must make a decision that will forever affect the lives of everyone he's ever loved.
Dreamland is an intriguing new twist on the Bonnie and Clyde almost mystical modern mythos that doesn’t rightfully put Robbie in the driving seat and doesn’t quite pull all that ambition and potential off.
Some may decry the film’s slow pacing but it's hardly pedestrian by any stretch of the imagination. Dreamland is a drama with some action packed robberies spliced in to great effect. But the issues don’t necessarily lay with the pace or plot of the film.
While the cinematography and slick, visually daring action sequences depicting their robberies are impressive, Dreamland doesn’t grab the audience with much of an emotional hook.
Margot Robbie unfortunately also plays second fiddle in this film to Cole’s Eugene Evans and while he is a solid performer he doesn’t quite yet have the same level of charisma and screen presence as Robbie does.
While Dreamlands is an intriguing take on the Bonnie and Clyde mythos that doesn’t quite live up to its potential, it’s still an impressive looking film with slick, daring action sequences.