Review of 'Public Enemies'

"Public Enemies" is one of the best 30's gangster flicks in a long time. It's a very solid film with some fantastic sequences. Is it as great as it could've been? Probably not, but it's some of the only dramatic adult entertainment you'll get in a summer that seems to be jam packed with robots, 3-D glasses, and comedies.

Director Michael Mann has created some great crime movies, including Heat, Miami Vice, and Collateral. In "Public Enemies" he shows off some of his best work in every action scene. Cars are ripped to shreds, rooms are totally pulverized, and walls are torn apart. It's really quite a sight to see the destruction in this film. Oddly enough I thought the most intense scene in this film had no shots fired at all, and that was Dillinger's second escape from prison. Talk about nail biting tension, it's a great sequence. So I think we can all agree that Mann is great at staging large action sequences with lots of guns, but what else can he do?

In his newest film, he does make us care about who he wants us to care about (Dillinger, and his pals), or just sympathize with certain characters (Purvis), and he makes us dislike others (Nelson and Hoover). Obviously this is attributed to the great cast as well, filled to the brim with solid leads and then some really fantastic character actors. Mann does seem to buy into the rough yet decadent life of a gangster, but Dillinger was hunted by police at every turn.

What Mann should have thought about doing was taking an "Unforgiven" like perspective and strip down all the romanticized notions about the time period. You kind of got that feeling, the downward spiral every gangster must've taken. You rob banks, the cops know who you are, so the only way to keep making money is to continue robbing banks.

The biggest fault the film has comes in the most important sequence. The terrible and very noticeable use of CGI nearly kills the whole feeling that the ending tries to convey. That's all I'll say about that, wouldn't want to spoil anything.

The acting in the film is well above average, which is nothing less than what was expected from such a talented list of actors. Johnny Depp seems to have been avoiding this role for quite some time. He always has picked the odd off-beat roles, but this part is actually fairly stereotypical. He is playing the role that Pacino or De Niro might've played twenty years ago, and he does it quite well. Depp puts on a deep voice and shoots a tommy gun with ease. So for anyone that was worried that "Captain Jack Sparrow" wouldn't pull it off, you are mistaken. The character of Dillinger is to much of an impulsive risk taker for this film not to be, at the very least, intriguing. He does some pretty crazy things, and if they are all true I certainly can now respect the guy as one of the most interesting figures in the history of the United States. Depp got a great part, but he did it justice, and it shows.

Christian Bale has had a rough summer thus far. Before signing onto "Terminator Salvation" he forced a re-write and said he was raising the bar on the quality of the film. Not only did it end up disappointing at the box office, but it also was ripped apart by critics, who before that, always seemed to love the actor. I personally am also a fan, but found his performance in T4 to be extremely lackluster and unconvincing. Bale seems to be rebounding well in this film with a very solid performance as the head of the Chicago F.B.I. office, Melvin Purvis. His superior, head of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover (played very well by Billy Crudup) pushes him to do terrible things in order to catch Dillinger. It's easy to see his tortured soul, even as he looks on quietly in close ups as someone is being beaten behind him. Bale is not loud and brutish in this film, he is a quiet gentleman, whose job forces him to do things he would never have imagined himself doing otherwise. The line of text describing the rest of his life at the end of the film is not only expected, but any great screenplay would've led their character the same route if the story was entirely fictitious. A very good performance and an interesting character.

Marion Cotillard won an Oscar for best actress two years ago for "La Vie En Rose." She does a pretty good job in this film, but nothing near Oscar worthy, and she probably is the weakest link in the cast. She seemed a little awkward and needs to get used to acting in English before she'll be a big star in the States.

The screenplay might actually be the weakest part of the film because it's the most cliche. Mann generally does a couple things that work very well, he does a lot with very little spoken words, and he likes to keep it subtle. When a character gets revenge on another character they don't grit their teeth and give a dramatic yell, they shoot and stare in satisfaction, or lack thereof. These strengths are clearly there, but the screenplay kind of tried to "scream commercial", and it didn't really need to. The love/romance angle was played up a bit much. This needed to be about Dillinger, he's very interesting, and his girlfriend has her moments, but not all that often. It was clear to me that the screenplay was orchestrated around appealing to women as much as possible, while assuming it would still hold onto men with some great action sequences. I don't know that this was smart because I think it really hurt the film. At 2 hours and 20 minutes it does seem to drag and that’s largely because of the romance angle. There are some scenes that were perhaps a few seconds too long, but nothing cries that it could've been cut more than a few of Depp and Cotillard's conversations. In any case, women were going to see the film anyway because of the two attractive male leads. I think the creative team should've been thinking, "How can we make the most realistic and compelling story possible?" not; "How can we get the highest percentage of both sexes butts into seats?". In any case, it's not a bad screenplay, it's just not as great as it could've been.

"Public Enemies" serves as both an entertaining gangster film, and a solid crime/drama, following in the footsteps of "Heat" by showing both sides of the battle, the law enforcement and the criminals. It is, however, clear why it is not being released during the holiday season to compete for the Academy Awards, because it would not be all that competitive. It's a very good movie, but the frustrating thing about it was that it was easy to see that it could've been an Oscar contender or even a classic with a few months of re-writes or more of an emphasis on Dillinger's story. Still, this was a very good movie that I recommend.