Public Enemies

Michael Mann's Public Enemies arrives on the heels of much hype and personal anticipation. It's the third major Hollywood film to focus on Depression-era outlaw John Dillinger, after the 1945 effort with Lawrence Tierney and John Milius's 1973 cult classic with Warren Oates. Being familiar with the book on which the film is ostensibly based, I was even more excited, if a bit leery about the casting of Johnny Depp and the eternally wooden Christian Bale. Unfortunately, while I was reasonably entertained by the film, I was also significantly let down.

To be sure, there are several strong moments in Public Enemies which hint at what could have been, and the film ends (or climaxes, rather) on a positively transcendent note. Unfortunately, although the film is decent enough as a piece of entertainment, it fails to live up to the potential offered by its cast and crew, and one suspects it could have been a lot more.

John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) is a dashing ex-convict who, along with a large gang of henchmen (including Stephen Graham, Jason Clarke, Stephen Dorff and David Wenham), begins a robbery spree in the Depression-era Midwest, knocking off banks and stores with impunity. The Bureau of Investigation, whose ruthlessly ambitious director J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) is itching to expand his nascent agency into a national police force, sends hotshot Special Agent Mevlin Purvis (Christian Bale) to track down Dillinger, with a team of inexperienced recruits - more accountants than lawmen - in tow. Dillinger falls for coat-check girl Billie Frechette (Marion Cottiliard), with whom he begins a passionate but doomed relationship. After Dillinger is arrested and almost immediately escapes, Purvis goes on the offensive, with Dillinger's gang gradually decimated - leading ultimately to the final showdown between the two men.

Bryan Burrough's source book is a wonderful, well-written and comprehensive account of the Depression-era crime wave, encompassing an entire time period and all its notables - not only Dillinger and Purvis but also Pretty Boy Floyd, the Barker Gang, Bonnie and Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly, and the elusive Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and the birth of Hoover's FBI. The book is comprehensive, well-researched, and perhaps too large and detailed for a feature film; it would perhaps take a miniseries to fit in all of the complexity, but it would certainly be worth the effort. Thus, Mann and his screenwriters focus solely on the Dillinger/Purvis showdown, with decidedly mixed results.

Focusing the film on Dillinger is perhaps understandable given the restraints of a feature film, but the film seems to dodge any complexity. In this film, the Kansas City Massacre, which really kickstarted the "War on Crime", is not even mentioned; Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi), who served as a nexus between the various robbery gangs (including the Dillinger and Nelson gangs, but also the Barkers, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, and the Chicago Syndicate) and was essentially the book's central character, is made an inconsequential bit character. The role of the growing Syndicate is represented (the film implies the Mob help set up Dillinger), but is done obliquely and seems a distraction rather than part of the plot proper. The movie touches upon the FBI's evolution from inept greenhorns (basically gun-toting accountants) to ruthless no-hold's-barred killers, but again it's done in such a tertiary manner that the transition never seems convincing. Perhaps too much time is also spent on Dillinger's budding relationship with Billie, which isn't convincing enough to work as the film's emotional rock.

Now, let's be clear: If the film had wanted to be a slim, trim Dillinger film, it would be fine. And certainly a more comprehensive portrayal of the period would be wonderful if done well. But Public Enemies tries to be having it both ways and doesn't quite succeed at either.

The film has a number of egregious historical errors as well; Purvis is shown gunning down Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum) in the film's second scene, when Floyd was killed three months after Dillinger. The Little Bohemia shootout, while fairly well-staged, seems to be more modelled on Heat than the historical record, with several Dillinger co-horts ahistorically biting the dust. This may be a personal problem, and I doubt most viewers will notice or care, but then I myself usually don't mind historical inaccuracies in films. If this movie were, say, The Untouchables, where accuracy is of little importance and the story is for fun, it would perhaps be excusable. But the film's pretensions to accuracy and seriousness make such egregious gaffes stand out, and leave a bitter taste in the knowledgable viewer's mouth.



Perhaps it's unfair, though, to be overly harsh on Mann for not adhering to the historical record. The movie knows what it wants to do and generally does it well, even if Mann seems to be recycling his earlier Heat at times. The film has a number of nice individual scenes (Dillinger's second jailbreak, the one face-to-face meeting of Dillinger and Purvis, the Little Bohemia shootout, Dillinger watching himself on a newsreel) but the only truly great sequence is the fatal showdown between our protagonists, which is a brilliantly-staged, instantly iconic sequence. Other big set pieces, particularly Dillinger's incognito visit to the Chicago police station, come off as false; the audience I saw the film with was laughing through the whole scene and I don't think that was intended. Still, the good generally outweighs the bad, and I would doubt the average viewer would have many of these problems.

The movie's portrayal of Dillinger is interesting. It tries to avoid the usual Robin Hood cliches associated with the Dillinger myth and portrays him in a complex light. He's sympathetic to an extent but the film doesn't shy away from his violent and unpleasant sides; he's basically a crook who nourished a public image. The film portrays Dillinger's obsession with public relations (highlighted by the well-done scene where he and his cohorts watch a Dillinger-oriented newsreel in a theater), and the influence of the media and films on his actions; in fact he was slain just after watching Manhattan Melodrama, a gangster flick starring Clark Gable. Some have criticized the film for a lack of depth in the characterization, but this seems silly. Dillinger and his contemporaries were essentially violent, reckless sociopaths; the FBI, looking to make their name and unable to take out the slowly-growing Syndicate established through Prohibition, went after these easy targets with devastating results. There wasn't much depth there to find, really, and the film does a good job of showing this; Dillinger was mostly what people saw him as, whether a Robin Hood-style hero or a ruthless criminal in need of extermination. He's certainly a much more compelling figure than the bland Purvis or his own mostly colorless associates.

A lot of people have complained about the use of digital video in filming the movie, but I can't say I had a problem with it. Although the handheld camera work is occasionally annoying, for the most part it's done rather well, and the HD visuals are quite striking at times. Shootouts and action scenes are well-staged by Mann, but nothing comes close to, say, the bank heist in Heat. The film is briskly paced, aside from a few draggy spots; the 140 minutes fly by, perhaps too quickly. The screenplay by Mann, Ronan Bennet and Ann Bidermann is full of dry, subtle humor (helped immeasuribly by Depp) and lots of quotable dialogue, though story structure and character development are a bit muddled. The period detail in costumes and art direction is virtually flawless, which makes the bigger inaccuracies even more odd. However, Elliot Goldenthall's score is mostly bland and forgettable synth-and-guitar riffs.

What makes the film work is Johnny Depp. I am by no means a Depp fan, but he excells as Dillinger, even if he occasionally veers towards the Jack Sparrow-esque. He injects the role with a perfect blend of humor, romance, charisma and violence, making the character an interesting, layered screen presence. Even when the script itself is unsure on what to say about Dillinger, Depp's talent and charisma makes the character work, and he remains a compelling (if not especially sympathetic) protagonist to the end.

The rest of the cast is mostly wasted. Christian Bale is his usual stiff self, which fortunately works well-enough for the film's characterization of Purvis. Marion Cottiliard has a few nice scenes but she mostly comes off as a perfunctory love interest, and her big emotional payoff seems forced. The supporting cast is mostly wasted, with a few gems shining through: Billy Crudup as a ruthlessly determined J. Edgar Hoover, Jason Clarke as Red Hamilton, Dillinger's most dilligent sidekick, and Stephen Graham as the psychotic Baby Face Nelson. Other fine character actors like Stephen Lang, Lili Taylor, and Peter Geraty get nice (if rather brief) grabs of screen time, but the rest are wasted.



In the end, my enjoyment of the picture is largely clouded by disappointment at the opportunity lost. A really great film could have been made from this material, but sadly this isn't it. I recommend Public Enemies as a good enough summer action film, but mourn the loss of a potentially great crime epic.