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Movie Review: Public Enemies
By Mark Stone
Now playing at Landmark Grand 10, Paramount and Capitol
Johnny Depp in Public Enemies (Photo: Fandango.com)
Quick movie quiz: Name the big-budget summer flick that contains all of the following: a hot Hollywood actress, no significant story, excessive weapons, a big name director, and a running time of almost two and a half hours? Must be Transformers, right? Unfortunately, all of the above also applies to the huge disappointment that is Public Enemies.
I’m a huge admirer of director Michael Mann. Collateral, Ali, Heat and The Insider – the last four of his five previous directorial efforts – were all great films and still hold their own today. His last film, Miami Vice, was a feeble attempt at reviving the hot 80s TV show that he created. Regrettably, Public Enemies feels like an equally feeble attempt at reviving the old-time gangster flick.
Public Enemies is the story of John Dillinger, a famous bank robber from the early 1930s. Law enforcement considered him a dangerous criminal, while the public worshiped him as if he were the Robin Hood of his time. Dillinger was not a nice man; he was responsible for the murder of several police officers, robbed many banks using excessive violence, and twice escaped from prison. The film begins with Dillinger (a miscast Johnny Depp) escaping from his first incarceration, and when it comes to the use of force – pardon the pun – he takes no prisoners. Early on in the film, he meets Billie Frechette (last year’s Best Actress winner Marion Cotillard) at a nightclub. The two are instantly attracted to each other and he takes her out to dinner. When she asks what he does for a living, he tells her honestly, “I rob banks.” Billie doesn’t seem to mind, and resolves to stick with him in spite of his profession.
You would think director Mann would exploit the complex relationship Dillinger shares with Frechette to provide the emotional enticement for us to care about his characters. Instead, Mann is more interested in bombarding us with close-up after close-up shot of Depp, as his character continues his quest to be America’s #1 badass. Depp isn’t the only actor that gets the exaggerated close-up treatment; Batman Christian Bale – who is completely wasted here – also spends much of his time on set with the camera zoomed in on his mug. Bale plays FBI agent Melvin Purvis with a mild southern accent, and is probably one of the most boring characters to ever emerge from a gangster film. It makes me wonder what he saw in the script that persuaded him to take this role. Bale has gone on record as saying that during filming, he didn’t spend any time getting to know Depp or anyone else on set. Perhaps he realized that he was playing a boring character in a boring film. It’s as if Michael Mann has such little emotional investment in this material, yet a huge one in playing around with his HD video cameras (in which the film was shot).
Was Public Enemies really that bad? Isn’t there anything positive you can say about it, you ask? Okay, the film’s final twenty minutes in which Dillinger is finally captured and killed (which doesn’t count as giving anything away, as this is based on a true story) is both engaging and beautifully shot. There are flashes of potential dispersed infrequently throughout the film, but intermittent potential does not a good film make. I had huge expectations for Public Enemies, but this is easily the year’s biggest disappointment.
The film is one huge miss: misguided, miscast, a missed opportunity, but worst of all, a mistake. For diehard Michael Mann or Johnny Depp fans only.
3 out of 10
Tags: Christian Bale, Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard, Public Enemies
