'Bonnie & Clyde' review: Muddled characters

Then "Bonnie & Clyde" -- like one of those Model A beauties that they heist every other scene -- finally chugs into view. The roar recedes back to a whisper: "B & C" really is just another biopic with superior production values, a few good performances and a pair of protagonists who deserve no sympathy, and receive none here.

Hirsch's Clyde actually offers a glimpse of what could have really turned "dutiful" here into "compelling" when he says, "from my experience, trying to figure out why people do the things they do defies all logic . . . "

Figure that one out as it relates to Barrow and Parker and Beresford has an interesting film. Fail to and you just end up with a lot of bodies and bullets.

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Who was this duo? Depression-era vigilante yuppies? Empty-headed sociopaths? Or -- like Kimye -- a self-absorbed celebrity couple who feasted on their own notoriety? In this miniseries, they're a bit of all three, which doesn't make them particularly interesting as much as muddled.

That leaves lesser characters to pick up the slack, and they do: Hunter, as a preening stage mother, excellent in her all-too-brief moments; Hurt, as the square-jawed Gary Cooper-type; and especially Reaser's vampiric P.J. Lane, who feeds Parker's empty head and bottomless vanity with idiotic stories about their glorious exploits. That's the most intriguing story over three hours. Too bad it's a side one.