The movie poster showed a smirking Johnny Depp head to toe in 1930s garb so I wasn't the least bit jaded about what I was getting into. Although for a brief minute, I was hoping it was somehow a movie that dealt with the greatest hip-hop group of all-time. Maybe a documentary on their rise to stardom, how they had dealt with various controversies over the years and Flav's eventual descent into reality show humiliation. But in lieu of that, a gangster flick about a notorious bank robber was just as good.
"Public Enemies" is the historical crime drama which follows the efforts of top FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) in capturing the infamous John Dillinger (Johnny Depp). Dillinger became somewhat of a folk hero during the 1930s thanks to his penchant for robbing the banks that many people believed responsible for the Great Depression. He became virtually unstoppable at the height of his criminal career since no jail could hold him and his exploits endeared him with the common people as he made headlines nationwide.
J. Edgar Hoover's (Billy Crudup) Federal Bureau of Investigations was just coming into formation. There was no better way for the ambitious lawman to transform the fledgling FBI into a national force than to capture Dillinger and his gang. Determined to bring Dillinger and his crew consisting of the sociopathic Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) and Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi) to justice, Hoover christens Dillinger the country's very first Public Enemy Number One. As a result, Purvis is unleashed to take them down by whatever means necessary.
The whole bankrobbing as an occupation concept is something that I will never understand. What is the point of getting money that way when you can't enjoy it? Maybe Dillinger was addicted to the limelight and that attention is what he craved more than money. Yet he was a victim of his own success because the more banks he hit, the more wanted he became. At that point, all that stolen money pretty much becomes useless.
They made sure to point out to us that Dillinger was smarter than Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum), who we see gunned down in the beginning of the film. That was why Dillinger was supposed to be so good at what he did because of how clever he was. Yet Dillinger is consistently doing things that seemed pretty stupid for one that should have been trying to avoid the law:
- Dillinger and his gang are in a movie theater talking all loud amongst each other about how they're going to bust someone out jail
- He's calling his girl, right after escaping jail, and announcing his plans on the telephone as if it never dawns on him that her phone may be tapped
- He knows his face is all over the papers and even news reels played before movies yet he does little to alter his physical appearance
It just seems like for someone that was supposed to be so intelligent, Dillinger sure was pretty careless.
I don't profess to be a cinematography expert, but the lighting throughout much of "Public Enemies" was annoying me. It was shot too dark in far too many scenes. That wasn't the only visual problem the movie had though. The camera was inexplicably shaky far too often. I thought for a minute that this was made by a first-time director it was so bad. Nope. It was a Michael Mann product and someone of his caliber definitely should have known better.
What was one of the more disappointing facets of the film was the lack of the conflict between Dillinger and Purvis. For them to be so-called nemeses, there was little time that they spent antagonizing one another. I was expecting more of a "Fugitive" type tension between the two. Maybe if Mann wasn't so busy trying to tell several different stories with one movie, he could have done that.
There just seemed to be something missing from "Public Enemies". Even with as engaging as Depp was as Dillinger, he didn't seem fully attached to the role. Maybe the lighting and the camera direction was throwing him off as well. The action did make it entertaining to watch, but the entire thing still fell a little flat with several minor deficiencies detracting from its potential.
My rating: B -
