Public Enemies (2009) – on rental. Now this was another big budget super-hyped film on last year’s movie screenings, but also a production I skipped at the cinema. I liked the subject material, but was less sure about the associated director – Michael Mann – involvement in it.
There were two big names in the cast list – Johnny Depp who plays the legendary American bank-robber John Dillinger, and Christian ‘Bats’ Bale who plays Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent who heads the task force to take him down.
The other three recognizable faces but in smaller roles were Billy Crudup who does an mesmerizing number as Purvis’ Boss J. Edgar Hoover, Stephen Lang who was most recently seen in his meaty role of Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar, and Leelee Sobieski, rarely seen in many films today, but shows up in an almost cameo role of one of Dillinger’s, er, ‘companions’.
Depp though is getting really recognizable these days, and it’s hard to watch a film he’s in with that slightly gravely but yet tenorish voice and not be reminded of Captain Jack Sparrow (the fourth Pirates film coincidentally will start filming this year). His John Dillinger is a bit of a 1930s’ Robin Hood, sans distributing his ill gotten gains to the poor. Here, he’s a gentlemanly sort of bank thief, respectful of women and the innocent and apparently loathe to take lives in his heists. If you can put aside that face of his and not think of dreadlocks and the word ‘savvy?”, he’s actually fun to watch in this show.
The one problem in the cast though lies in his opposite number: Christian Bale. I’m not sure what to think: Bale did amazingly good in the two Batman films alongside director Chris Nolan. But like Terminator: Salvation, he’s repeated his shockingly bored and lethargic performance of the agent on the chase in Public Enemies. His role as written for the film is exactly workmanlike, with no real examination of his background, person or motivations. In fact, his wooden performance as Agent Purvis strikes me as exactly the sort of thing I’d expect from Keanu Reeves.
The other problem I had was Michael Mann’s direction. The man’s got a unique cinematography style that for me at least, works only sometimes. It’s not at least the steroid-driven drunk monkey camera operation I found in Michael Bay’s two Transformers films. Rather, it’s the almost hand-held-like camera use with a home video-like sheen in the prints and sets. A lot of times, the film bounced between the typical film-like visuals you see in any other theatrical release, and a home-video sort of look. It was really jarring. The use of the home-video look worked well enough for his other set-in contemporary times films like his reimagination of Miami Vice recently, and also Collateral (really liked that film) – but it didn’t for me in a period film like Public Enemies.
At least the scenes are still well-staged, especially the numerous incidents when Dillinger’s gang of robbers repeatedly outsmart the local authorities, and also when the latter finally catches up with them in huge gun battle fights. Mann’s familiar with this sort of scenes, though the ones here still doesn’t outperform that amazing bank robbery scene he did for a similar film 14 years ago, Heat, which still remains for me today his best work. The historical aspects of the John Dillinger robberies is also interesting, and from analysis of the film elsewhere seems relatively accurate to the actual record.
So, in all, watchable for me, and informative at least. Just not great.
Recent comments