The catalyst of poverty without opportunity, combined with rage and a rejection of society, resulting in chaos, murder, mayhem, with a background of depression era America. Two of the greatest performances of the time capture the menace deployed by the Barrow Gang as they carve, shoot and slaughter their way into cult stardom, both on and off screen - the super antiheroes of their day.
It can be a challenge accepting interpretation over fact but if fact is a cornerstone of your experience then perhaps documentaries are more to your taste. Once you take the lives of others and throw them on the big screen it's done for entertainment not education, so you have to be prepared to take things with varying sized pinches of salt. You can always follow up the facts later if the fancy takes you. Cult heroes to some, raging psychopaths to others - either way, characters that appear in various guises over the course of cinematic history and more likely will continue to do so for some time to come - always a fiction but occasionally grounded in fact.
It can be a challenge accepting interpretation over fact but if fact is a cornerstone of your experience then perhaps documentaries are more to your taste. Once you take the lives of others and throw them on the big screen it's done for entertainment not education, so you have to be prepared to take things with varying sized pinches of salt. You can always follow up the facts later if the fancy takes you. Cult heroes to some, raging psychopaths to others - either way, characters that appear in various guises over the course of cinematic history and more likely will continue to do so for some time to come - always a fiction but occasionally grounded in fact.