Public Enemies
Mon, July 6, 2009 
The fastidious director of such hits as 'Last of the Mohican's' and 'Heat', Michael Mann, returns to cinema screens with his first effort since 2006 bomb 'Miami Vice'. 'Public Enemies provides Mann with the cops and robbers material he loves, exploring the psyche of men driven in the intense world of crime and catching criminals, he loves to get into the heads of both sides of the coin, never more so than in his classic 'Heat'. In this instance he takes on the real life bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) and the man that tracked him Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), along the way taking in J. Edgar Hoover, the birth of the FBI and the beginning of the medias fascination with celebrity. The film focuses on the crime wave era of Dillinger in the early 30's and his eventual death. Dillinger was a man caught between the end of the wild west outlaw era and the beginning of the organized crime era.
The first thing to praise about Public Enemies is Johnny Depp, the film rests it's fedora firmly on his charisma and he doesn't disappoint, cutting a charming and charismatic figure as Dillinger, a fun loving and funny bank robber with an undoubted dangerous edge to him. Depp owns the screen and every second he is not on it the film is that bit weaker.
Now support wise everyone is good, Bale, who has come in for a lot of unfair criticism recently in my book, is fine as the square jawed, fastidious lawman, it's just that the role is a character type rather than a fully fleshed out character. We get to know Melvin Purvis is a driven and intelligent man who dressed in perfectly cut suits, but beyond that there is little delving into what makes him tick. Marion Collitard is excellent as Dilliger's girl Billy, her soulful eyes say more than her lines ever could and fortunately she strikes up an easy chemistry with Depp on screen to make that central relationship work because there really is not a great deal of time for development.
Time...that is the movies main enemy, there just isn't enough of it, the film feels like a lot of vignettes meshed together, kind of like snapshots of the characters as opposed to any meaningful development. bits of story are thrown in here and there, things whip along, bank jobs happen, then Dillinger has a dodgy stache and is at the races with Billy, it never feels like the film sets into a story driven rythym.
However this is not to detract from how entertaining and engaging these scenes are, indeed there are lots of wonderful scenes in the film and some big shootouts, although I still question the need to shoot partly in HD digital and partly in regular film, it gives an uneven feel to proceedings, one minute you are in a lavish 30's gangster era film and the next you are watching a 30's version of COPS. This is particularly evident in the well shot but jarring gun battles. Mann is a technically brilliant director and the film has some wonderful shots, but you can't help but ask "If it ain't broke why fix it ?"
The film flirts with the idea of the birth of celebrity and the techniques that were coming into law enforcement such as wire tapping, but these are brief and never more than a side diversion in between more charismatic scene stealing from Depp.
Public Enemies never quite reaches the heights of Mann's masterpiece HEAT or for that matter The Untouchables, it is good but I couldn't help but feel the great scenes could have been part of a greater movie with a longer run time. Still what is here is an erratic but entertaining gangster film with a magnetic performance from a true star in Johnny Depp.
7.5/10
Reader Comments (2)
I never did make it out to see this in the theater. It looks like a good rental possibility.
I couldn't agree more with your review...good movie but not near the caliber of HEAT, too many Batman fanboys have been defending everybit of it because Bale's role as well as the B3 wish list with Depp at the top. Not that I can say anything bad about Depp in this movie, He was awesome.
I completely agree about the HD cameras...these secenes were retarded, not because of the content but the cameras used, it was very distracting.
Really like your review