Public Enemies

Title: Public Enemies
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Crime/Drama
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Stephen Dorff, Billy Crudup, Stephen Graham
Director: Michael Mann
Duration: 139 mins

***SPOILER ALERT***

In 1933, John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) launches a crime wave that captures the whole nation's attention, as well that of the fledgling Bureau of Investigation--not yet known as the FBI--led by Director J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup). Hoover sends Special Agent Melvin "Little Mel" Purvis (Christian Bale), fresh from the elimination of Pretty Boy Floyd (a barely-there cameo by Channing Tatum) from the famous "Public Enemies" list, to put an end to Dillinger's spree. Purvis and his men are consistently outgunned by Dillinger's gang, so they turn to new (at the time) crime-fighting tactics (such as wire-tapping and cross-referencing evidence, as well as out-and-out torture of captured suspects), to run the criminals to ground.

Meanwhile, Dillinger, now named Public Enemy Number One, finds love in the form of a coat check girl in a Chicago nightclub named Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard). While she rejects his advances at first, Billie finds herself increasingly attracted to Dillinger and his devil-may-care attitude. Dillinger himself grows more and more confident after a series of successful jailbreaks and bank heists; he begins to work closely with other famous criminals of the Depression era, such as Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi), Frank Nitti (Bill Camp), and Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham). Purvis and his "Dillinger Squad" slowly develop a proficiency in tracking Dillinger's gang, and corner him several times; despite Dillinger's daring escapes, Purvis relentlessly narrows the gap between hunter and hunted.

After a shootout in northern Wisconsin with Purvis' G-men in which all of his gang is killed, including the dangerously homicidal Nelson and his friend Homer Van Meter (Stephen Dorff), Dillinger grows increasingly despondent. His plans to retire from his life of crime and escape the country with Billie are ruined when she is arrested by Purvis' men in order to draw Dillinger out of hiding. Dillinger, disillusioned with life, plans one last heist with Karpis and his associates, the Barker gang, but is set up by Anna Sage (Branka Katic), a Romanian immigrant and associate of Dillinger, whom Purvis threatens to deport if she does not cooperate.

On July 22, 1934, Dillinger is cornered by Purvis' men at the Biograph Theater in Chicago after a showing of the Clark Gable movie "Manhattan Melodrama," which he attends with Sage (who wears an orange skirt to identify herself and Dillinger to the feds; this skirt appears red in the theater lights, thus making her known as the infamous "Lady in Red") and another female acquaintance. Upon his exit from the theater, Dillinger is shot several times by Texas Ranger Charles Winstead (Stephen Lang). The movie ends with title cards stating that Purvis quit the FBI a year after Dillinger's death and "died by his own hand" (read) in 1960, while Billie Frechette was released from prison and lived the rest of her life in Wisconsin.

"Public Enemies" is not a feel-good movie. Set in the American Midwest in 1933-1934, at the lowest depths of the Great Depression, this whole movie exudes despair. That despair is apparent in everything about this movie. The cinematography mainly uses washed-out earth tones, evoking a sparse, desolate feel that is right in line with the Midwest of the '30s. The costumes and props are very consistent for the time period, and the actors deliver their lines in a way that seems calm, yet barely masks the worries underneath. The sets are authentic, having been shot almost entirely on location in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and other places in the Midwest.

Depp makes an excellent Dillinger. Aside from bearing a remarkable resemblance to the famed outlaw, Depp plays Dillinger with both the self-confident swagger typical of a man who consistently outsmarted the FBI, and the brooding introspection of a man who comes to question the worth of a life of crime (as well as his own). Depp's Dillinger is mostly very subdued, and never over-the-top; unfortunately, this causes him to be occasionally upstaged by his less-famous costars. Bale finally ditches his Batman growl and assumes Purvis' South Carolina drawl admirably, as well as the G-man's stoic and implacable approach to crime-fighting. He does come off as a bit too wooden sometimes, though, particularly during the Wisconsin shootout. Cotillard, in the film's best performances, plays Billie Frechette as both a timid young woman from a small town trying to make her way in the big city, and a defiant gangster's moll who won't sell her man out for anything or anyone. Another highlight performance belongs to Graham, who very convincingly portrays the sociopathic Baby Face Nelson.

"Public Enemies" does a lot of things very well, but it does take a lot of liberties with the facts--too many, in fact. I won't go into detail about the historical inaccuracies, but you can read them here. Another big gripe of mine was the sound. The dialogue during the first 30 minutes of the film was overpowered by the sound effects; I had to strain to hear what was going on, and I still didn't catch everything. I thought it was just the theater where I saw the movie, but I looked at IMDb afterwards and other people reported the same problem. So if you see this, make sure you get a seat close to the front.

All in all, "Public Enemies" was good, great even, but not amazing. Too many historical errors, bad sound in some spots, and a few clunker moments that just fall flat (one of the few scenes with Depp and Bale onscreen together, in which Purvis talks to Dillinger in the latter's jail cell, comes to mind) really detract from a movie that had the potential to be truly awesome. "Public Enemies" will probably get a few nods at the Oscars, but what could've been the best big-budget film of 2009 is reduced to an enjoyable crime drama, a la "The Untouchables." This is a perfect example of Hollywood taking too much dramatic license and bringing down an otherwise excellent film.