Truly great action goes a long way to elevating a middling story. In a summer that has already had two giant-robot-movies, director Michael Mann’s emphasis on adrenaline over spectacle is refreshing. That’s not to say the story Public Enemies is a weak one; it merely fails to offer anything new.
John Dillinger, played with class and restraint by Johnny Depp, is a bank robber in the so-called “golden age of bank robberies.” He is a criminal who sees himself as an entertainer: his heists are his performances, and the American people his audience. His impressive criminal record (already well under way at the start of the film) ironically earns him the title, “Public Enemy #1,” but it’s clear from the media attention he receives, the man is nothing short of a celebrity. After being arrested, an impromptu press conference is held at the police station while reporters scramble to ask questions of the cuffed Dillinger. Throughout all of this, Dillinger remains a man of the people, insisting on only taking “the bank’s money” leaving the change and belongings of patrons behind.
The plot treats Dillinger’s crime streak in the 30’s as a standard cat-and-mouse crime film, with Christian Bale as Melvis Pulvis, the newly appointed leader of the FBI’s hunt for Dillinger. However, to label either man as the mouse would be to downplay the competition between the two. Bale (thankfully breaking his grunting speech with an accent somewhere between Southern and Bruce Wayne) is a smart and exacting hunter, with Depp playfully dragging him and the FBI along his trail. The remainder of the film’s heart lies in a standard romance with the beautiful Billie (Marion Cotillard) who Dillinger handpicks out of a club and subsequently woos with his fugitive charm.
Both the romance and the competitive interplay between Depp and Bale however are underdeveloped, and the real meat of Public Enemies is its action. As he did with his last two films (the brilliant Collateral and the stylish but underwhelming Miami Vice), Mann uses handheld cameras to give immediacy to his action scenes, thrusting the viewer into the center of the violence. At times it almost feels as if we’re watching a well-shot episode of Cops. These kinetic sequences are edited with quick cuts, giving brief flashes of images that imprint themselves on your eyelids. Where other films’ attempts to use handheld cameras result in nausea and confusion, Mann skillfully creates some exhilarating moments with a pace worthy of a man who claimed he could rob a bank in a minute forty flat. This modern style works well with the film’s period details, avoiding the tedium that often comes with period pieces.
Public Enemies paints an image of this moment in history as the end of an era. Crime and crime fighting are no longer a gentleman’s game, and both Dillinger and Pulvis find their fields being taken over by more heartless men than them. Dillinger’s Robin Hood persona doesn’t fit with the brutal violence of his peers like Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham), and Pulvis is told by J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) that he’ll need to “take off the white gloves” in order to catch Dillinger.
But the film never truly delivers on these elements of history and character, and we’re left with a half-developed concept of these men and their time. Still, in the hands of Michael Mann it’s hard to complain with the final result. I’ll always be a man who prefers story to action, but damn if I don’t just love the sound of a Tommy gun.
- Steve Avigliano, 7/2/09
A fairly good movie, and Deep always delivers. However, this movie is not in the same vain as "Bonny and Clyde" or "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," however I wasn't expecting either so I wasn't disappointed.
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