Public Enemies is a film that seems to have everything going for it. There’s an estimable cast, boasting the likes of Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard. There’s a quality director in Michael Mann. There’s even a dynamic subject—John Dillinger. But this promise is wasted on a straightforward retelling that feels less like vibrant cinema and more like a super-charged History Channel special.
There are basically two ways to spin well-known historical accounts into successful movies: either the story becomes a metaphor, transcending simple “look this happened” meaning or the audience needs to be given a fresh, never-before-considered perspective. The best films do both. Public Enemies does neither.
It’s as if the team behind this movie got so caught up in the John Dillinger myth that they forgot this basic truth: We already know all about it.
The film opens with one of Dillinger’s infamous escapes, a shoot ’em up milieu that quickly encapsulates the threads of his life—honor among thieves, common-man rebellion and the violent rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns. From then on, we watch a series of bank robberies and deaths as the newly minted FBI closes in on their public enemy No. 1. Eventually he dies because, like with all gangsters, a woman betrays him.
I’ve rendered the plot in ho-hum puffery, and that’s what it deserves. My friend who watched the film with me actually fell asleep during one of the robbery scenes. I had no such luxury. While Mann deserves kudos for his fairly painstaking accuracy to historical minutiae, even going so far as to film in the actual locations where the events took place, his work here is the definition of tedium. No great acting—and there is some—could save this mess.
And talk about dumbing it down! Does Depp, as Dillinger, really need to spout this line: “We’re having too good a time today, we’re not even thinking about tomorrow”? He’s a bank robber! Of course he doesn’t have a five-year plan! If I wanted thematic details spelled out in crayon I’d watch Dora the Explorer.
Depp, ever the professional, does bang-up work with a script that does little more than make his character into a clever thug. He oozes charm and confidence, just as Dillinger must have, and, honestly, without him Public Enemies would be nigh unwatchable.
Bale is as grim as ever. He mostly just fills his part as lead FBI agent Melvin Purvis like so much blank, ultra-dour silly putty. Cotillard as the Dillinger love interest is another bright spot. She extracts the film’s most harrowing and interesting scene, where an overzealous lawman takes her “vigorous physical interview” to an uncomfortable extreme.
The most out-of-place feature of Public Enemies is its use of digital video technology. Mann has done this before with his work in Collateral and Miami Vice, and the lowlight pixel grime really fit. Here it just seems messy and undercooked. Plus, because this film is set in the 1930s, there’s a visual dissonance that is not easily ignored. It just looks bad. Even non-geek moviegoers will be distracted by this choice of material.
If you had asked me last year to name the perfect director for a film about the criminal life of John Dillinger, I probably would have suggested Michael Mann. Few modern action directors have his deft touch, especially when it comes to crime stories. Turns out, though, that this union might have been too perfect. Everyone behind this project seems so enamored with the story of John Dillinger that they forgot about the idea of John Dillinger.
When I go to the movies, I don’t want a history lesson. Do you?