Reviews
Public Enemies
July 1 2009
Michael Mann
Starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard
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“Boy, you’re in a hurry.”
That is the assessment of hat-check girl Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) when, over the course of a short evening, John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) has picked her up in a club, taken her to a swanky restaurant, revealed that he is the notorious bankrobber and fugitive, and invited her to come along with him because “where I’m going is a whole lot better.” Even Billie knows what tends to happen to those who live fast, and adding to this mood of fatalism, it is a matter of historical fact that Dillinger’s story will end, within a year of his meeting Billie, in a pool of blood outside the Biograph Theatre in Chicago, just after he has himself finished watching a gangster movie.
Indeed, Michael Mann’s Public Enemies seems to occupy a strange space where history and cinema intersect. Much like his contemporary Clyde Barrow who was immortalised in Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) as a doomed anti-hero fit for the Sixties counterculture, Mann’s Dillinger comes to our screens at a time when the world seems to be slipping back into Depression and it is all too easy to identify with a criminal who, for all his violence, sticks it to the banking fat-cats. What is more, this Dillinger self-consciously manages and maintains his public image, making him a suitable figure for our celebrity-obsessed times, while the nascent Federal Bureau of Investigation charged with apprehending Dillinger is itself just beginning to employ surveillance technology and ‘vigorous’ interrogation methods that resonate with the post-9/11 dispensation. So while Public Enemies is in many ways a rather old-fashioned film, it reaches far beyond its Thirties setting – and no-one has ever before shot the Depression era as cinéma vérité, where painstaking period detail clashes with handheld DV camerawork (sometimes thrillingly, sometimes just annoyingly).
Whether with Manhunter (1986), Heat (1995) or Collateral (2004), Mann is attracted to plots where men on either side of the law go head to head, and Public Enemies is no exception, setting Dillinger on a collision course with dogged G-Man Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). It is all a bit American Gangster (2007), or The Untouchables (1987) with a sympathetically presented real-life villain not unlike the one Depp played in Blow (2001). In other words, there is little here which is not already familiar from other films, even if Mann knows better than many how to deliver a muscular piece of action drama. Too bad, then, that the film’s coda is so weak, leaving the viewer with an implausible piece of romantic poetry offering resolution of only the most precious kind. Like Dillinger, the film lives fast, only to die young.
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all the reviews of p.e. i've read are the same(kermode,guardian, times etc) and i couldnt agree more
but its certainly not a bad film and well worth a watch as is any michael mann film
i'd have like to have seen more of stephen graham, stephen lang and billy crudup
Written by fuzzydunlop on July 7th, 2009 at 18:40
I found this very average, way too drawn out for a film about someone who 'lived fast' and I also think shooting digital was a bad idea. The whole film also seemed to lack any real depth, especially with the similarities found in the modern policing system like mentioned in this review. Overall it was an average film held together by a strong cast and a few decent action scenes.
Written by doug1482 on July 9th, 2009 at 19:11
I find it stange that Michael Mann would return to such familiar ground as single-minded cop chases single-minded robber. While he's always had a penchant for the crime film, Heat stands so tall among his work, to go back to a similar set up (albeit in period setting and based on a true story) begs for a comparison. Alas, his latest suffers quite poorly when lined up against Mann's finest work. It's not a complete failure. It looks stunning and has an immediacy and intimacy that is seemingly at odds with the distant, old fashioned 1930s setting. They modern aesthetic and solid (if bland) performances hold the attention, but there is something missing. The central plot (if you can call it that) is loose to the point of slackness. Scenes flit from one to another with very little holding them together – Dillinger and his crew rob a bank, the hole up, J Edgar Hoover gets angry, the mob get antsy, and then Dillinger does another score… all the while a poorly realised romance hangs in the background like a bad smell.
Written by declangunn on July 10th, 2009 at 11:40
Am I the only one who thought shooting digital really didn't work? It also suffered from an overall 'so what' feeling, at the end there wasn't any real revelation, we knew he was going to die from the start and for what reasons. Yet when it came to the end it was exactly as expected but with no real point made.
Written by doug1482 on July 10th, 2009 at 13:20
Doug, you're not alone. Shooting on digital certainly gave the film an immediacy and momentum that would have been impossible otherwise, but there were moments (not many, mind) when the image just looked plain awful – and for no obvious reason apart from the limitations of his chosen medium (limitations which, on this film's budgetary scale, it ought to have been relatively easy to correct), as though he chose to include them just to advertise the fact that he has gone digital. To me, at least, this had the opposite effect to that (apparently) intended, in that it took me out of the moment.
(MILD SPOILER ALERT)
I liked the actual death scene (with its final words unheard), but wish the film had ended then and there, rather than including that contrived and mawkish coda that delivered on a platter a message that was, in fact, pure banality.
Written by Anton Bitel on July 10th, 2009 at 13:41
The last half hour or so (up untill the unnecasary epilogue) was actually well done.
My whole problem with shooting digital is that it gives a very realist, sharp, immediate look, but on a period film it often made it look fake and on a set (despite being all shot on location I believe) also night/dark scenes were horrifically noisy and was particularly noticeable in the cinema scene when it was cutting between inside and outside the cinema. Some scenes did look really great (still shots in bright lighting, there were some great shots near the start) but as soon as the action kicks it in at all looks very messy.
Written by doug1482 on July 10th, 2009 at 14:44
Has anyone seen the poster to this? Blatently some egos clashing with the placing of the actors names on there. Christian "what don't you fucking understand?" Bale up to his old tricks it seems.
Written by adhesif on July 14th, 2009 at 16:41