Public Enemies
Tommy Gun, you ain't happy less you got one...
There is a moment in almost every Michael Mann film when the camera lingers just over the shoulder of one of our protagonists, filling the screen with the back of their head and maybe a bit of ear as it follows Mann's clockwork men mechanically pursuing their work. The camera follows them as if it is the unseen and largely unquantifiable force or weight driving them. This signature shot nicely sums up Mann's body of work: the thoroughly detailed and somewhat detached procedural of men at work and the existential drift that moves them on either side of the thin line between law and crime. This has produced results both sublime -- The Insider -- and ludicrously awful -- Miami Vice -- so it was with some trepidation that I approached his latest, Public Enemies, an ambitious, but flawed epic of the Golden Age of American crime.
Shot all in HD Cam, Mann and cinematographer Dante Spinotti have created a movie that looks fantastic, as the light-weight of this new technology allows for all those unseen forces to become even more fluid and omnipresent, creating a hyper-real canvas of extreme close-ups and a muted palette of browns and blacks that is both ugly and gorgeous, a fitting look for the film's depression era setting. Of course, it is really Johnny Depp's movie, whose performance as John Dillinger eclipses almost everything else in its orbit, and remains the most interesting and engaging part of the film. The movie is shot with technical brilliance, but it is really only Depp that manages to captivate or engage. The film is littered with a who's who of character actors who crop up again and again without much to do or say. You have Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Graham, Leelee Sobieski, That Dude from Lord of the Rings, Shawn Hatosy, Stephen Lang, Rory Cochrane, Billy Crudup, Lili Taylor, Channing Tatum, Stephen Dorff, Jason Clarke, and probably a dozen other people you may remember from such films and tv shows as ____. They're all quite good, they just don't really matter, drifting in and out of the movie or being gunned down without much rhyme or reason. Christian Bale is mostly a zero as the straight-laced G-man, Melvin Purvis, who pursues Dillinger. However, I should give Marion Cotillard her props as a non-prostitute, female in this sausage party of a movie. She does great work in a role that I nonetheless have the sneaking suspicion was thrown in to attract skeptical girlfriends on a Friday night.
The problem with Public Enemies is that much like the utterly listless American Gangster, it wants so badly to be the next great American crime epic, the next Bonnie & Clyde, the next Goodfellas, or even the next Heat for that matter. It aspires to be a grand statement on crime, celebrity, and the country that worships them, but it lacks any coherent idea of what it really wants to say. To be sure, it's much better than American Gangster, but watching Public Enemies basically left me with two thoughts. The first being that even when compared with hardcore sociopaths like Baby Face Nelson and Frank Nitti, the FBI -- or in this era, just the "BI" -- are far more evil, as they will gladly torture, kill, or destroy anything that gets in the way of expanding the powers of a small group of unelected, pseudo-fascists, or as Crudup's J. Edgar says, "a modern law enforcement agency made up of the best sort of young men," you know, WASPs without conscience. The second thought the film left me pondering was, why on Earth did we ever stop using Tommy guns? Because, man they look like they get the job done.
Ultimately, when taken as a whole, Public Enemies is a film not quite as good as its best moments. However, its best moments are really quite good. The bank heists, jail breaks, and one amazing shoot-out with the feds in the Wisconsin woods are thrilling and might be worth the price of admission, but I found that the movie was most inspired in its little throwaway moments, including one scene near the end where Depp asks a group of men the score to a baseball game, I'll spare you the set up, but it actually is worth the ticket price. There are also two really great meta-moment, scenes of Depp/Dillinger watching and seeing himself in the movies. It is here where the movie breaks out of itself and shows glimpses of the greatness it aspires to, although fans of history will already know how one of those trips to the movies ended.
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One character, very drunk, makes just about the worst James Cagney impression I’ve ever heard. That’s what this movie is. It’s a Universal film pretending to be a revisionist rendition of the Warner Bros. Gangster films. It’s a bad impression of William Wellman’s film The Public Enemy, starring Cagney. If only it had been more homage than revision. This film could have used the other’s gritty realism, instead of the fantasy world in which Public Enemies comfortably resides. I also wouldn’t have minded if someone had shoved a grapefruit in Billie Frechette’s face when she began to cry.
Read my full review at http://cfi
Heeeey! I loved American Gangster! Never thought Frank Lucas was a hero, though. It was interesting to me, although, yes it was long, and a bit slow at times, sometimes knowing it is a true story, or based on a true story keeps me watching and interested through slow exposition, when if it were a fiction, I wouldn't keep up with it.
Looking forward to seeing this movie. Love Depp, Love Cotillard, and often really enjoy Bale. From the Advertising campaign, I wouldn't have thought this movie had pretensions of being a 'next great crime drama', I'll have to wait & see!
And wasn't Dillinger really thought of at the time as a sort of 'hero' or anit-hero at the time?
This is a wholly modern film with few if any of the usual cliches. It is probably that absence that turns off people. I am thinking Gus Van Zant's Elephant as a precursor of influence. Dilinger cannot change. Dillinger robs banks. That's what he does. He is the modern gunslinger. That is what his celebrity is based on. The people have no sympathy for banks that lost them all their money, and they don't now either. But they would turn on him in a heartbeat if he robbed working men of their wages in a payday heist. So the movie Dillinger is a comment on the present banks as well as the new corporate crime syndicates and their lawyers who can interpret what congress and the government is doing.
As for Bale, his is a finely nuanced characterization. The immobile face, the controlled tight mouth that only suggests a smile when he sees Dilinger in prison, having bested him for the moment. Just a tiny flick at the corners. This is the stereotype of the legal hunter, the man of the 30's who has purged himself of all emotion, the scientific technocrat hunting the romantic bank robber, a contest doomed from the start. Bale is the living persona of the coming fascist world threatening western civilization. But the reviewer wants a less subtle performance to applaud.
We are witness in this film to that tiny existential moment in time when the gunslinger turns corporate. The devil is in the details.
Actually, as a fan of period crime films, I thought this film was stuffed with cliches. I've seen James Cagney movies that were more edgy.
Actually, some of the things you mentioned were not even depicted for some reason, like the great depression and how many people made Dillinger a hero because he robbed the hated banks. There was that scene where Dillinger refuses to take some working guy's money and says that he's just taking the bank's money (there's an exact same scene in "Bonnie and Clyde", byt the way), However, who's money is he stealing if not other working people's. What is "bank's money" anyway? He's not really robbing the president of the bank, just regular folks who deposited their funds in that bank (and this was before the government guaranteed to cover bank funds).
Interesting review, though I liked the film less than you. My main issues are these. First, this is one boring, drama-lacking flick (and if it wasn't slow enough, Mann constantly uses slow motion). Everyone here is one dimensional, including Dillinger, who comes across as one of the dullest criminals ever. Secondly, this is yet another romanticized depiction of the criminal class. They're not heroes, people. Dillinger would pump your mother full of lead if it meant getting his score. The movie ends with a CU of Dillinger's girl crying. Was I supposed to feel sad? Sorry, but I'm glad they shot the bastard, particularly since it meant the film was finally over. And was it me or was the great depression not depicted at all? Granted, there are a couple of cool set pieces (shoot-out in Wisconsin, etc.) and some nice compositions, but that isn't enough.
Michael Mann should go back to directing TV. I've yet to see a single one of his movies that was worth the movie ticket and 2 hours.
It is a movie that is glorious to watch, listen to (great music) and revel in the camera shots that Mann is famous for. Depp is electric on screen but I agree with your review. I don't think it had much of a point other than to mesmerize you. And that' s not a bad thing.
Tip for movie lovers - www.metacr
This film has a score of 70 out of 100 - what is interesting is that some critics gave it a 100 - some gave it 50.
Think I will have to check this one out.
This post is totally bunk. It was a fantastic film, the best of the summer pack I have seen.
It's really not trying to be anything more than a film about the last few years of this man's life, his relationships and his downfall. It is incredibly well shot and interesting from frame to frame.
Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard have great chemistry. And no she is not in the film to get women to see it, she actually plays a real person that Dillinger was involved with. It is mainly about Dillinger, there is no way that the story could cover all the people that he knew, they are all there for necessity of the moment.
The bottom line here is that this is an exceptional film about an interesting time of transition in American crime from the solo players to corporate mobsters and the progeny of the FBI.
It is not making any statements or trying to be anything other than what it is. Why did this person write this? Nothing he said holds water. This is a great Micheal Mann film, everything works, go see it.
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CVales,
Sorry? But I don't think my review was nearly as negative as you made it out to be. To answer your question, I wrote this because I thought I had something interesting to say about it, and I wanted to offer an honest critique of how I felt about the film. Which is to say, I liked it, but didn't think it was quite as great as you did.
I agree with you with the bit about the transition from independent agency to corporate criminal structure, but I just didn't think there was enough of that point of view, or really enough of any point of view. I think there were some very strong moments, and it was brilliantly shot, I heaped praise on Depp and Cotillard and the rest of the cast--save Bale--I was being a bit sarcastic and cynical about the girlfriend thing...Ju
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cheers,
Will Menaker
I liked the movie, but you do make some good points about the flaws of this film. I thought Miller's Crossing was much better.
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Liberalgirl,
Miller's Crossing is quite a high bar to clear...a lot of good Tommy Gun action in that one as well..
Cheers,
Will Menaker
DearLeader
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