Public Enemies
“Public Enemies” begins in the midst of an elaborate prison break. John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) orchestrates the clever ruse, busting his partners in crime out of the big house so they can plot their next bank heist. Within minutes, the escape goes slightly awry and the guns come out.
The next few moments unfold with the intensity one might expect from a film directed by Michael Mann (“Collateral,” “Heat”). Bullets fly furiously across the screen. The prison guards fire at the gangsters and the gangsters return fire on the guards as they make their daring escape to their getaway car. Dillinger makes it to the car only to see his dear friend, Walter Dietrich (James Russo), shot down in front of him. Mann’s camera hones in on this moment nicely as Dillinger grabs onto Dietrich’s arm, trying to pull the man into the car with him. Dietrich dies and Dillinger releases him slowly from his grip.
It is a poignant moment in an otherwise unaffecting film.
In 1933, Dillinger captured the imagination of a press and a public riveted by his nearly two dozen bank robberies. His charisma made him an appealing figure to a country in the midst of a Great Depression and his exploits made him at once a contemporary Robin Hood for the country and Public Enemy #1 for a nascent Federal Bureau of Investigation.
How strange then that “Public Enemies” feels so uncharismatic, so perfunctory in its approach to such a fascinating figure. It takes considerable talent to squander the likes of Depp, Christian Bale (“The Dark Knight”), Billy Crudup (“Almost Famous”), Marion Cotillard (“La Vie En Rose”), and Giovanni Ribisi (“Lost in Translation”) on a film about John Dillinger, J. Edgar Hoover, and Baby Face Nelson. Still, “Public Enemies” manages to do just that for nearly two and a half hours.
The script by Ronan Bennett, Ann Biderman, and Mann draws from Bryan Burrough’s book, “Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34.” Critics praised that book for its in-depth account of an era that saw a public fascination with figures like Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, and Dillinger during the Depression. Burrough’s book also focuses on the rise of J. Edgar Hoover, noting how the headlines made by criminals like Dillinger paved the way for Hoover to grow his small agency into the FBI familiar to most of us today.
Mann’s “Public Enemies” only hints at such an intricate story. Here, Hoover (Crudup) huffs and puffs at Melvin Purvis (Bale), the man Hoover puts in charge of putting an end to Dillinger’s crime spree, but those moments are too few and too lackluster. The script leaves Bale precious little to do other than carry a gun, appear occasionally stoic, and purse his lips in frustration. Crudup, meanwhile, shows up to remind Purvis to do his job and to commend junior G-Men for the press.
Weirdly, the film never really pauses to explore any number of the complex relationships from such a rich history. Instead, in what seems like a bizarre gamble on Mann’s part, “Public Enemies” relies on Depp’s charms as an actor to communicate Dillinger’s charms as a bank robber. That might have worked if the script had bothered to give us more moments like the one where Dillinger talks to the press after his capture in Indiana. Here, for a few brief moments, Depp comes alive as Dillinger, smiling and joking with a fawning press.
A few moments later, Depp and Bale face off as Purvis stands outside Dillinger’s jail cell. What should be an electrifying exchange between two men on opposite sides of the law instead feels oddly flat and uninteresting. The script cannot muster enough energy to delve too deeply into these two fascinating characters, not even in a scene such as this one that all but begs for it.
So it goes for most of “Public Enemies,” easily one of the most disappointing films of the summer. Despite Dante Spinotti’s beautiful cinematography and Mann’s intriguing camera aesthetic, the film simply fails to excite. The script betrays the material and the actors at nearly every turn. Poor Marion Cotillard suffers through the thankless role of Dillinger’s love interest, Billie. No matter how often the film throws a Billie Holiday song on the soundtrack, it cannot make us care about this woman, the supposed love of Dillinger’s life. There is a moment late in the film where Billie learns about Dillinger’s death and the music swells as if this revelation is as devastating for the audience as it is for this character. It has the opposite effect, reminding us instead how little we have invested in any of the characters or anything happening on screen, swelling scores and pretty lighting be damned.
Grade: C-
