Parents' Guide to Public Enemies

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. 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.

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.