Public Enemies

What’s the Story?

In 1933, John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) began a 14-month crime wave that started with his release from prison and ended with his death on the streets of Chicago. Hailed by the public as a modern-day Robin Hood -- or at least a charismatic criminal who struck back against the banks that many Americans blamed for the Great Depression -- Dillinger was a celebrity in his day, as was Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), the lawman that J. Edgar Hoover set on Dillinger's trail. As Dillinger and Purvis are both driven to extremes by outside forces, their kill-or-be-killed hunt plays out. ...

Is It Any Good?

Director Michael Mann has made more than just crime films like Heat, Collateral, and Manhunter -- but, of course, those are the ones we remember him for. But Mann's more interested in ethics, morals, and society than he is in simple run-and-gun action -- even if he can, and does, deliver incredible action sequences as part of making his deeper dramas. PUBLIC ENEMIES is a thoroughly watchable piece of thriller cinema, anchored by a great star turn in Depp's John Dillinger -- but it's also a much darker, more complex film than the Tommy-gun toting action in the trailers and the posters would suggest.

It's also a film in search of a story to tell -- Depp's Dillinger exists without a past, and Bale's Purvis is a cipher. Marion Cotillard plays the love of Dillinger's life, and she walks a careful line in depicting both a starry-eyed woman seduced by Dillinger's dangerous charms and a fully actualized person well aware of what she's doing. Public Enemies may have a few too many stories in it, and it's hampered a bit by the lack of a clearly defined arc outside of Dillinger's romanticized rise-and-fall. But the technique is immediately apparent, and the textures hidden in the story reveal themselves as more and more interesting the more you think about them. Public Enemies is a film with real depth -- and a welcome chance to engage in a film during the summer season of shallow blockbusters.