Even if the movie has many problems it manages to deliver a coherent and quite interesting plot in one "and a haalf" hours of witty, sometimes funny lines. The problems are common for most of the period of the early talkies when actors didn't really know that the exaggerated expression of the silent era was no longer needed. The acting style in most of the movie can become really annoying, but the memorable one liners (most of them made famous by a long tradition of gangster films and by cartoon parody) keep the whole think from sinking too low. The character that brings the most sparkle is definitely Cagney, though it took me some time to accommodate myself to him. At first it all seemed quite fake (his accent, behavior etc.) but eventually I got hooked on his charismatic character. His moralizing brother was really annoying, over the top acting, and Ma Powers wasn't much help. The women were quite bad. Jean Harlow had a very small part, actually, and she looked very unattractive too. I have no idea if she's supposed to be some celebrity of the time, but coupled with Cagney she was really awful. Most of the gangster characters, even if they remind a contemporary viewer of comic books worked quite O.K and it is a surprise to see that today's movies didn't manage to stray too much from the original recipe. Give me this movie instead of The Departed nay day, I admire its effectiveness in making its point without the use of gore, warlike violence and foul language, even if the message is somewhat preachy.