8/10Johnny Depp as John Dillinger is served to us as a hard-boiled egg. Dillinger is a man of simple tastes; he likes baseball, fast cars, movies, good clothes, and whiskey, as he tells his girl, Billie Frechette (whom he also likes). Dillinger is a bank robber and a dangerous man. His background is never explored; rather, it is skimmed over by Dillinger himself in a manner of seconds (much like his robberies). He is absolute and disciplined. That is why he is so good at what he does.
Director Michael Mann adapts this tale of the bank robbing golden age from the book Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34 by Bryon Burroughs. This age in America was so rife with sagely gangsters and cheeky bank robbers that it inspired supervillainesque nicknames (“Pretty Boy Floyd,” “Baby Face Nelson,” and Alvin “Creepy” Karpis) one might find in the pages of a comic book. There were so many characters, and many of them would collaborate for the next big job, much like the classic costumed villains.
Although it is not the feel-good, comic book, sense that Mann brings to this front. The film is like Dillinger, absolute and disciplined. The film captures this buck wild side of crime but does it with seriousness.
The three above mentioned criminals all make an appearance in the film’s rouge gallery but for every criminal there are lawmen working in counterpoint. Billy Crudup plays J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI’s first director, and plays him well. Christian Bale relieves us of the Batman voice (seen also in Terminator Salvation) and is excellent as Melvin Purvis, the man hired by Hoover to stop Dillinger. Purvis is a tactful man who fights for the law and is determined to succeed and put Dillinger behind bars or in a coffin. He, in the beginning, is the only man of his outfit qualified to stop criminals of this caliber.
Depp is solid as Dillinger. His attitude and demeanor are further establishes Dillinger as being absolute. Because of Depp the audience is not left to wonder about where he came from or why he acts the way he does. He just is.
Marion Cotillard plays Dillinger’s “girl,” Billie Frechette. Not much comes out of this relationship, as those annoying policemen constantly separate the two, but the two get what they need from each other. For Billie, protection. For Dillinger, a sense of empowerment for his safeguarding.
Visually, the film is beautiful. A shaky camera and excellent direction provide for a captivating mise-en-scene, especially during the shootout at Little Bohemia, where the muzzle-flashes heighten the imagery. Filmed digitally, it gives the film a hint of an animated, smoothed over look that, at times, I cannot decide if I like.
The film is high in quality and very dense indeed. But it does, however, lack a dramatic quality to it. Perhaps it is because we do not know who to root for? The movie is essentially Purvis vs. Dillinger, and the audience is not pushed to favor one of the two. Both men engage in good deeds but also stray away from their ethics at certain moments. Both men are affiliated with bad men and good men. Or perhaps it is because we already know the fate of Dillinger? I think not. Consider in Milk, a movie about a real man whose fate was also known beforehand. That film somehow made me forget about Harvey Milk’s fate for the two hours I watched it until the very end, and was startled. So perhaps it is a little bit of both.
Public Enemies is still a slightly different kind of gangster film. It substitutes machismo and exaggerated stylishness with intelligence and clarity.
