With the summer usually filled with entertaining blockbusters that focus more on fun than anything deeper, it comes as a surprise to see this month see the release of Public Enemies, the story of infamous gangster John Dillinger. But is the film a real insight into a criminal whose reputation lasted far beyond America’s 1930’s, or just another forgettable gangster flick?
The film sees two of Hollywood’s biggest names face off against each other. Johnny Depp plays Dillinger, as we follow him for a year or so of his violent life. He is being pursued by Agent Melvin Purvis (played by Chrsitian Bale), recently assigned head of the FBI, under pressure to catch the criminal due to the FBI’s need to prove itself to gain further funding. Dillinger hooks up with moll Billi Frechette (Marion Coutillard) but finds himself in a changing world, in which his speciality of bank robberies is no longer the priority of the gangster underworld, while the Feds close in.
Directed by Michael Mann, the film feels like either an overlong and restrained action film, or a dramatic thriller that lacks depth. As the former, the film only succeeds in part. Mann has a habit of obsessing over the minutiae of shoot outs while avoiding huge explosions or slow-motion (see Heat). One scene in particular works, in which Dillinger and his cohorts try to flee from the Feds through a forest at night. But most of the time they drag on, the clacking of tommy-guns soon wearing our patience thin. And as a drama the film completely fails, for it is unable to provide any sense of life beneath any of its characters. Read the rest of this entry »
Two strong actors playing vital roles in the adaptation of Brian Burrough’s book “Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-43.”
