Review of Public Enemies

With Public Enemies director Michael Mann (Heat) once against ventures into the world of criminals and the lawmen hot on their tail. It's well worn ground for Mann and many consider him to be among the best in telling these sorts of stories. Here, Mann gets to play in the Depression era age of crime and focuses specifically on the legendary bank robber John Dillinger, known just as much for his flaboyant confidence as his actual criminal record. With a top tier cast and story that is right up his alley, the expectations on this film are understandably high. Unfortunately Mann isn't able to bring all these pieces together as anything more than something mildly entertaining.

Public Enemies deals with the tail end of the criminal career of infamous bank robber John Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbbean). When the film opens Dillinger is already the most wanted man in the country, but his habbit of crossing state lines makes him difficult to track down. J. Edgar Hoover, played by Billy Crudup (Watchmen), is trying to use Dillinger's state hopping as political leverage to get Congress to approve the creation of the FBI. To show how effective his proposed agency would be Hoover has assigned his top man Melvin Purvis, portrayed by Christian Bale (The Dark Knight), to hunt down and capture or kill Dillinger and any others like him. Along the way Dillinger begins to romantically pursue the alluring Billie, played by Marion Cotillard (La Vie En Rose). As the law closes in Dillinger begins to see his options dwindle and he's forced into more desperate jobs and to team up with the psychotic "Babyface" Nelson, played by Stephen Graham (Inkheart).

Almost everything good in Public Enemies is due to the cast in general and star Johnny Depp specifically. Depp captures the wonderful devil-may-care charisma that made Dillinger such a fascinating figure. Impressively, while Dillinger is painted in a sympathetic light there are no attempts made to soften his character - he does kill people. He's not a maniac about it, but he carries a gun that he isn't afraid to put to use. It's nice to not see the violent aspects of the character toned down, which happens far too often for criminal hero roles (see Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma as a prime example). While it's hard to argue that the film is strictly about Dillinger (the movie can't seem to decide exactly what it's about, more on that later) he certainly does have the most screen time and the film is the most fun when he's there. As for the supporting cast, nobody really stands out but Michael Mann made the very wise choice to cast recognizable faces in many of the smaller roles. A part like the female jail keeper might have gone unnoticed had it not been played by Lily Taylor (The Promotion). Ditto for Stephen Dorff (Blade) and David Wenham (300) as two members of Dillinger's gang. Ultimately though these characters are most memorable (if at all) when paired with Depp. His energy along with a few well-planned action scenes are what give the film all of its high points.

While there is fun to be had in Public Enemies at no point does the story or characters really let the audience in. By the end of the film there's nothing that will leave anyone with the feeling that they know these characters better than they did when it started. None of these characters seem to go through any sort of personal journey. Some live, some die, but none of them really grow or change. Not that it's always necessary that characters go through these sorts of journeys for a film to work. Mann seems like he doesn't approach this material or story as mindless entertainment but then he doesn't give the audience enough insight. While sometimes Mann can be wonderfully visceral (such as with Collateral), many of his films suffer from this kind of distance from the characters and the events that keeps the audience from really being fully engaged.

This problem in Public Enemies is really embodied by Christian Bale and his portrayal of Bureau of Investigation (it's not federal yet) agent Melvin Purvis. The character of Purvis is a talented agent but also quite a bit of a stiff. This isn't a fault of Bale's performance, the character has been written that way. Perhaps there's more to this character than just an almost mindless devotion to his assignment and a sort of generalized morality but the audience just isn't given enough to see anything but that. This is a film that touches on many different aspects of the characters and events but can't seem to commit to what exactly the story is about. Dillinger's care of what the general public thinks about him is brought up but not explored. An antagonistic relationship between Dillinger and the rest of the criminal world develops that is interesting but this only really gets lip service. Purvis is using what at the time were cutting-edge techniques to try to catch his prey but there isn't much exploration into this either. J. Edgar Hoover is using Dillinger as his criminal poster boy for the need to create a federal law enforcement agency, but only sporadic attention is paid to this.

A firm focus on any one of the above mentioned aspects could have given Public Enemies the sense of purpose that it so sorely lacks. Despite managing to be entertaining there ultimately doesn't feel like there was a point to the whole endevour. Not all films need a deeper meaning but it feels like there was supposed to be a point and a focus but somehow that got lost in the shuffle. Mann seems to have wanted to touch on so many things that he made it impossible to give any of them the attention they deserved. The result is that in the end every possible story point suffers a little and the film as a whole suffers a lot. This is probably Mann's most disposable film but even in spite of that the charismatic performance of Depp will be enough to make this worth one viewing for fans. For any that don't think that Depp is enough to see a film in and of itself, they may want to approach Public Enemies with more caution.

Final Score: 3 out of 5