A lot of expensive movies are large. So one thing has to be clear before we get started: Epic cinema is not just scale. An epic has to make human feeling look small against history without making it meaningless. That is the trick.

Since a good many crime movies have a “crime doesn’t pay” thing going on (especially those made some time ago), it’s not exactly the happiest of genres. Even crime movies that focus on good people can showcase bad things happening to them, and then the really effective ones can also make you feel bad for people who themselves are doing bad things.