If you want to know why John Dillinger did what he did, why he became one of the most well-known and legendary criminals in American history, you will not get any answers from watching Michael Mann's PUBLIC ENEMIES. Content with showing you the "what" but not really the "why," PUBLIC ENEMIES is to be commended for eschewing the standard Hollywood bio-pic treatment. The only trouble is, a small helping of that traditionalism would have made this particular film viewing experience a bit more satisfying.
Dillinger was an enigma during his time, and Mann is content with keeping him so. The film is a sequence of action scenes strung together, a timeline of some of Dillinger's famous bank robberies, scrapes and encounters meticulously recreated here to get every possible detail right from the look and sound of the man himself to the clothing worn by the woman who ultimately assisted in his final capture and demise. The soundtrack is a seemingly non-stop spray of machine gun fire; dialogue is often mumbled or mixed down in the sound editing mix.
One curiosity is why the film is titled in the plural, as its focus is exclusively on Dillinger. The captures of Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson appear as momentary diversions here, window dressing. So unimportant is Nelson to this version of the story that if you scour IMDB for the name of the actor who plays him, you must click on the link for the full cast list and scroll clear to the bottom to find the credit. Channing Tatum, not a very good actor, fares little better as Floyd. Ultimately, neither of Dillinger's side kicks are very recognizable in the film. There are so many similarly-dressed men with machine guns and the script does little to help us distinguish one man from another.
This is not the case, naturally, with Dillinger himself, and though I've heard some criticism of Johnny Depp's performance as being less than dynamic, I think it proves once again how spot-on Depp's work is. Dillinger was only dynamic in ideas, not in the way he moved around. No peacock he, Dillinger lasted longer than he should have exactly because he could move among the crowds as that guy you feel like you've seen somewhere before but you can't quite put your finger on it. Add in a little mustache here or a pair of sunglasses here, and Dillinger slightly shifts shape. Depp nails that.
Even better than Depp in this film is Marion Cotillard, fast becoming one of my favorite film actresses. As Billie Frechette, Dillinger's girlfriend, Cotillard is stunningly beautiful in a plain way, needy and intense, cautious and passionate. An interrogation scene where Frechette is grilled about Dillinger's whereabouts is the film's acting focal point; Cotillard is spectacular.
It's odd that over a dozen additional recognizable names in film appear in roles in PUBLIC ENEMIES but you don't really remember any of them when the film is over. Instead, you feel capably of visually recreating the bank robbery scenes. And yet, for all of Mann's talents as a preeminent action director, I found these moments to be no more creative than that TV commercial where a guy programs his Direct TV from his cell phone when an ongoing bank robbery threatens to force him to miss his show.
The art direction and period location and set work in PUBLIC ENEMIES is top-notch. I enjoyed, as a Chicagoan, studying the locations in the tri-state area that were meticulously used here - many of them the original locations where Dillinger moved and operated. PUBLIC ENEMIES is a fantastic film to watch, to be sure, and Mann knows how to block action and keep things exciting.
What about Dillinger's psyche, though? How is it that this man was ballsy enough to walk into the office at the Chicago Police Department assigned specifically to tracking him? The film contains almost no conversations that help us understand him at all. Perhaps that is the point. Maybe Mann's thesis is that robbing banks is what he did and there really was no reason why. I find that hard to believe, and even some historically inaccurate speculation would have made this a better film.
Mann avoids historical inaccuracy and speculation at all costs, however. And for all that I've read and seen, PUBLIC ENEMIES deserves praise for being a rare historically-based film that actually could work as a history book lesson. That is very rarely the case.
Dense on action, long in running time, and focused more on connecting the dots of Dillinger's whereabouts than allowing us to get to know any of the story's players better, PUBLIC ENEMIES is a solid film that simply failed to give me enough of what I was looking for.
2.5 out of 4
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