There are only a few movies I'm hard-core enough to see on opening day.
The Simpsons Movie was one. The first
X-Files movie (back in 1998) was another. And last but not least, the latest crime oeuvre by my favorite director, Michael Mann—
Public Enemies, the story of John Dillinger as played by one of the greatest actors of this decade, Johnny Depp.
I've been a fan of Michael Mann ever since I saw his great crime epic
Heat in the spring of 2003. And when I learned that he was helming a film about one of the most notorious bank robbers of the 20th century, I was pretty excited! I was pleased, too, to have Johnny Depp as the leading man, as Johnny Depp is an actor you just can't help but love. I personally believe that his best role was as
Hunter S. Thompson Raoul Duke in
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and would love to see him win an Oscar one day. Whether he gets an Oscar nomination for
Public Enemies remains to be seen, but seeing him portray a bad guy that you're actually cheering for makes for a fun experience!
Given the ho-hum reviews I'd heard from pre-release audiences beforehand, I was understandably nervous going into
Public Enemies, because the last thing I wanted for my favorite director was a cinematic stinker—particularly since the Mann audience is still split on the verdict of his last film (
Miami Vice). But right from the first frame of
Public Enemies, with the introductory script slowly materializing on the screen (in 1930s font, no less!), I was hooked. Because
Public Enemies starts out inside a prison—pure Michael Mann territory. And when the first hidden guns appeared among the sewing room shipment of materials, deep down you could just sense that a jailbreak was imminent—again, pure Michael Mann territory! And Mann didn't disappoint, because shortly after Johnny Depp made his subtle entrance as the famed bank robber, the inmates turn the tables on the prison guards, plenty of gunfire erupts, and Dillinger's escape is in full swing.
With that opening prison break, the movie screen basically said to me, "Michael Mann's still got it!"
Naturally, there's a bank robbery almost as soon as Dillinger and his crew are out of prison, and I couldn't help but wonder if Mann was doing a bit of self-homage—specifically to the legendary bank robbery and resulting gunfight in the streets from
Heat. Perhaps Mann, knowing that all of his action films are inevitably going to be compared to
Heat, put together that first bank robbery and machine-gun getaway specifically with that audience in mind.
Also on the heels of Dillinger's prison break, we're introduced to FBI lawman Melvin Purvis, played by another Oscar-worthy actor: Christian Bale. In his introductory scene, we see him chasing down one of Dillinger's associates, Pretty Boy Floyd, through an overgrown field, with Purvis demonstrating his exquisite marksmanship by taking down Floyd with a rifle from a good distance away. It was this takedown that brought him to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover (played by an unrecognizable Billy Crudup), who was already under intense Congressional scrutiny for not capturing Dillinger already—or capturing Dillinger
personally. With that in mind, Hoover appoints Purvis as his leading man in the hunt for John Dillinger . . . only what Purvis doesn't realize (at least initially) is that capturing the notorious Dillinger is
far easier said than done. And that when he doesn't deliver, he becomes Hoover's personal whipping boy.
I have to confess, I wasn't sure what to make of Christian Bale's performance. A lot of people took issue with the fact that the script didn't provide any real back story to the characters, and that it was most detrimental to Purvis's character. I'll be honest, I was too caught up in the events on screen to give much thought to the back stories of either Dillinger or Purvis, so that omission didn't bother me too much. But there
were times where it did seem to me that Christian Bale didn't know quite what to do with the character. For the first half of the film, I was clearly able to see Purvis as a well-intentioned lawman who got in way over his head with the task of pursuing John Dillinger. But at some point, Bale just seemed to lose focus with the character, which I find surprising, because Bale is a very capable actor who was working with an equally capable director. The idea of two capable professionals unable to make it work in the final analysis is just unexpected and surprising.
But getting back to John Dillinger for a moment, Depp's portrayal of him wasn't entirely that of a ruthless criminal. He does exhibit a small sensitive side. Because through a friend, he meets up with Billie Frechette, a coat-check girl who can't seem to decide if she wants the quiet life or a thrilling one with a bank robber, and they begin something of a romance. Marion Cotillard was an unexpected casting choice for the part, though I'd have to say she did it reasonably well. Though as the story progressed and Dillinger began to fall out of touch with the times, his vulnerabilities began to creep in, and Depp portrayed these magnificently! Take, for example, when he returns to Frank Nitti's compound and is told, in no uncertain terms, that he's bad for business—by an old friend, no less! Because the bookies operations that Frank Nitti is running could turn the same profit that one of Dillinger's bank robberies could . . . only several hundred times a day, rather than just once. Imagine what that does to the ego of a notorious, almost fabled bank robber.
One of the most amazing scenes comes towards the end, when one of Dillinger's lady friends has to apply for a waitressing license down at the local police station . . . and Dillinger decides to walk into the station with her! By this time, his appearance is different enough (from age) that he might not be so easily recognized, and he ever so nonchalantly walks right through the door of the Dillinger Pursuit Division and casually peruses the wanted photos of himself as a younger man, along with the wanted photos of all his old associates, most of whom are either dead or captured . . . all while the on-duty detectives are huddled around a radio listening to a ballgame. Talk about taking a trip through the lion's den! And both Depp and Mann pulled it off masterfully.
As always, Mann's visual style ruled the day. And since this
is a Michael Mann film, there were gunfights a-plenty. Pretty much each time a bank robbery took place, a machine-gun fight would come either as the robbery was in progress or as the crew was speeding off in the getaway car. There's a fabulous gunfight about two-thirds of the way in, where Pervis and his G-men ambush a secluded cottage in the forest where Dillinger and his crew were holding up. As in
Heat, the sound of the gunfire felt genuine and authentic, rather than synthesized and dressed up for cinematic effect. And the destruction from all the machine-gun fire was amazing—bullet holes riddled everything, debris and dust flew everywhere. Mann's sense of authenticity shined through with perfect clarity, and that's one of the filmic traits I admire about him the most: how Mann never goes for the fake and always seeks to provide the genuine. Since I've cited
Heat enough times, let's take another of his films as an example. How about
Miami Vice? I can think right away of a similar gun battle in
Miami Vice . . . well, not so much a gun battle. More like a slaughter. Early on in that film, a clandestine meeting is taking place at an abandoned lot in greater Miami, and one of the groups in the meet happens to be undercover cops. When this is discovered, their car is gunned down with some pretty heavy artillery (like metal-piercing heavy artillery, the kind that make human flesh unrecognizable), and the camera angles and effects showed the powerful
minute-level destruction wrought on by such heavy-duty firearms. Another example would be later on in the film, when someone walks into Gong Li's office, pulls out a gun, and shoots one of her associates in the head. The action happens so fast that it's over before your mind even has a chance to process what's just happened.
That's the kind of realism and camerawork that makes Michael Mann such an effective director.
The camerawork in
Public Enemies really kept me glued to the screen, because in the first half hour of the film, there were very few static shots! Almost all the camera angles were kinetic, energetic, moving right along with the action and the actors, often very fast. It actually reminded me of the shaky camerawork from the later
Bourne movies, which I know a lot of people didn't like, but I found it to add a great element of tension and adrenaline to those scenes.
Though I should mention, there
were two musical cues that I didn't like: during the first two bank robberies, the scenes began with electric guitar riffs, which I thought were out of place for a period piece. I've seen enough Mann movies to know that electric guitar music is part of his style, so I guess its inclusion in
Public Enemies shouldn't be
that unexpected. All the same, it just didn't feel right to me to have them there, and that's my only major criticism of
Public Enemies.
At one point in the film, an interesting thought occurred to me: how historically accurate is
Public Enemies? Unfortunately, I really have no idea. To my knowledge, there's only one other film about John Dillinger, and that's the 1973 film
Dillinger starring Warren Oates. But historical accuracy notwithstanding,
Public Enemies really nailed it for me. I give it an 8 out of 10, with great acting from Johnny Depp (as always) and utterly fabulous direction and conceptualization by Michael Mann—proving once and for all that, when it comes to the crime genre, Michael Mann is
still the man!
