JOHNNY DEPP PUBLIC ENEMIES MOVIE MOVIE
JOHNNY DEPP PUBLIC ENEMIES MOVIE PROFESSIONAL

It points instead to the wider focus of Mann's book source - 'Vanity Fair' writer Bryan Burroughs' 600 pages of meticulous research, 'Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34.' Relentless G-man Purvis (a convincing but bloodless Christian Bale) and his rising boss FBI chief J. The title itself provides a clue to the problem: it doesn't focus on the star criminal embodied by the charismatic and - here - coolly dashing Johnny Depp, whose quips and provocations in the trailer draw us into the theater to see him, only him, and his bold exploits.

JOHNNY DEPP PUBLIC ENEMIES MOVIE MOVIE

It's as hard to get a grip on Mann's impressive but vaguely off-putting new movie about John Dillinger's last thirteen months as it is to project yourself into the coldly beautiful digital images. No doubt the same people will rate this comment down, probably without even reading it, simply because I did not give the movie a 9 or 10. Right now the IMDb rating for this movie is higher than 'The Untouchables', 'Once Upon a Time in America' or 'Goodfellas', which is a testament to the cinematic ignorance of the majority of IMDb voters. It is competent, but ultimately it fails to match up in comparison with other movies of this genre. In the end, though, I just did not care all that much about him. It tries hard and it does get close, particularly with the scenes involving Billie, one of Dillinger's many girlfriends.

This ought to be easy with a character like Dillinger, because he actually built a huge public fan base as a latter day 'Robin Hood', despite being a murderous bank robbing crook. An important goal of a movie like this is to build an emotional connection with the central character. So it is not a documentary, which is fine, so it must be a character movie right? This brings me to its biggest flaw. Of course the reason that historical movies rarely follow history exactly is that real events don't naturally follow standard narrative. You are duped into thinking the director cares about historical details with all the period sets, cars, news stories on the radio etc, but actually major parts of the plot are just made up. For instance the death of 'Baby Face' Nelson is complete fiction. Also for a movie that prides itself on historical detail, it plays fast and loose with the facts about the Dillinger gang. What's bad: a shootout sequence is obviously shot on a video camera looks cheap and has a major discontinuity in it. What's good: Johnny Depp and Christian bale are good, the pacing is good, the sets and period detail are perfect. This movie tells the later stages of the crime career of John Dillinger, famous bank robber. The ending, when it comes, seems almost arbitrary. In addition, the cast is so big that the supporting players, like Stephen Dorff, James Russo, Billy Crudup, David Wenham and Stephen Lang get lost in the mass, each lacking truly memorable scenes. As ever, Mann has a steely eye for the action so the film zips along when concentrating on them it's everything else that's a bit lacklustre. Nevertheless, the drama and excitement when it comes is very well handled, with the shoot-out in the woods particularly fine and the bank robberies all staged very well. Depp's romance with Marion Cotillard is particularly gruelling and heel-dragging.

Bale's protagonist is totally unmemorable, leaving Depp to hold the fort as the anti-hero of the piece, but whenever the film moves away from a complex action set-piece it falters. Superficially, the movie looks good and the characters go through the motions with aplomb, but you never really care about what happens to them.

JOHNNY DEPP PUBLIC ENEMIES MOVIE PROFESSIONAL

Unfortunately the screenplay feels a little bloated at times and the truth is that while Michael Mann is a consummate professional as director, his films always possess a certain coldness that makes it hard to get close to the characters. It comes close to feeling like an epic at times, detailing the cat-and-mouse games between infamous bank robber John Dillinger and the G-man on his tail. I liked PUBLIC ENEMIES but I didn't love it.

Johnny depp public enemies movie