Directed by:
Michael MannCinematography:
Dante SpinottiComposer:
Elliot GoldenthalCast:
Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup, Jason Clarke, Rory Cochrane, David Wenham, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Lang, Leelee Sobieski (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
Johnny Depp stars as charismatic 1930s gangster John Dillinger, whose notorious bank robberies have turned him into a celebrity during the Depression era. The rise in crime has J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) desperate to have his newly created FBI take down gangsters such as Dillinger, "Pretty Boy" Floyd (Channing Tatum), and "Baby Face" Nelson (Stephen Graham). Enter Agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), an ambitious crimefighter sent to Chicago to capture Dillinger and his gang. The criminal has evaded the law before, but he is drawn to the Second City by the beautiful Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard). (Universal Pictures US)
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Reviews (15)
Another gem with heart and conceptual depth that many people (in the cinema, but also on FilmBooster) won't understand and will only see what is visible at first glance: a standard and routine crime story with a handheld camera and raw shootouts with a minimum of emotions. Michael Mann is still the same, but the film is incredibly cool and well thought out. A slightly weaker version of Heat, more intimate and unfortunately set in the 1930s.
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Miami Heat in the thirties where the first half is rather slow (even for Mann) but the second half more than makes up for this in genius. Production design? Pricey. Atmosphere? Such that money can’t buy. P.S.: If you ever read King’s short story “The Death of Jack Hamilton", you’ll have come across similar characters.
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On the one hand, the digital camera (I don't get it, but by the end I got used to it), the drawn-out plot and several historical inaccuracies, on the other hand, the perfect actors and especially the actress, the excellently filmed shootouts, very suspenseful scenes and Goldenthal's magical music. Public Enemies is good, even very good, but it’s not perfect. If Michael Mann had wanted to make something like Heat from the 1930s (and he probably did, given how sympathetically or unsympathetically Dillinger and Purvis are portrayed), he didn't succeed. But nobody expected that anyway, did they?
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Mann continues where he left off with Miami Vice – in raw and unadorned filmmaking, in which there is sharp sound and naturalistic image of a digital camera. He once again helps himself wonderfully with music that gives the sequences a gradient and atmosphere. Unfortunately, the intention to make a 1930s version of Heat failed due to the script, and because of Christian Bale. I don't know who is to more blame, but Depp's thug is the main character, and the sleek man of the law is absolutely unable to handle any problems or ambiguities. It’s all about John Dillinger, and Michael Mann, with his foppish and gentleman-like nature, pays tribute to all of the mustachioed gangster melodramas from the past. It works great, including the ending. The motif of Dillinger as the last representative of gallant robbers, which is destroyed by an inconspicuous mafia racketeering, brings a certain depth to the film. For two and a half hours, Public Enemies kept me entertained, because Depp and Cotillard work well together, and Mann is able to dive right into the middle of the events. But there is something magical missing – in this case the poignant tension between law and crime, good and evil. Dillinger and Purvis are both far too unambiguous to form as explosive a pair as Hanna and McAuley.
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There’s no need to hide it under a mountain of text, when one word is enough to describe Public Enemies to the tee: borefest; maybe extended with the adjective digital. It’s hard to say why this flat gangster flick needed to be so long, when not a single one of the protagonists develops in any noticeable way (Purvis has only goal for the entire film and Dillinger doesn't evolve at all after meeting Billie). The biggest problem is how uninteresting both of the main characters are; what can you do when you don’t have anyone to root for (because both of them can be seen negatively) and you don’t give a toss about their fates? A weaker 6/10.
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