Movies about gangsters from the early part of 20th century America are nothing new. Filmmakers have been adding one over-sensationalized account after another to the cinematic libraries of Hollywood for decades — with some entries having been made while their real-life influences were still walking about. In recent years, though, the gangster film genre has favored the “modern” gangster types. We’ve seen just about every tale there is to tell about Russian or Irish mobsters with friends or family on the other side of the law, to inner-city Black, Asian, or Hispanic street thugs who race a lot — and let’s not forget those heavy Italian guys that say that say “fuhgeddaboudit” way too often.
The whole formula — as true as it sometimes was — grew old real quick, and people began to get bored. Apparently, filmmaker Michael Mann (Heat, Miami Vice) must’ve grown bored with the genre, too, since he returned us to our “gangster roots” with Public Enemies, a vehicle based on the iconic hood, John Dillinger, who is played here by Johnny Depp. The story follows Dillinger’s rise to infamy during the Great Depression by robbing banks. The public is impartial to Dillinger’s crimes, and see his actions as a vicarious way of revenge against those who placed the whole country in dire straits to begin with.
But J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup — who, sadly, does not appear in drag while in character) is not pleased at all with Dillinger’s robbing spree, and so he promotes Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to capture the thief, whom they have recently dubbed “Public Enemy No. 1.” And so, while Purvis attempts to get an infantile FBI off the ground and motivated enough to capture the criminal, Dillinger is falling head over heels with a young lady named Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard). The relationship is as star-crossed as can be, as Purvis’ men narrow in on Dillinger and his pals.
From an aesthetic standpoint, Public Enemies is an appealing film. It plucks some of the classic real-life characters from the classic gangster films of yesteryear and heads them off in an entirely different direction. This story is one more of human drama than action. But there are plenty of action scenes to be found, too — which are quite realistic in nature, and remarkably well done.
All aesthetics aside, though, I found Public Enemies to be a bit of a mess. For one thing, the story didn’t quite meet up with my expectations. The protagonist (Dillinger) and his antagonist (Purvis) only share one scene together, and each actor representing is relied upon to fill in the void during the rest of the movie. Enter the supporting character, or, in this case, supporting characters (plural). Normally, a right-hand man (or woman) for each pivotal role is a good thing, but Public Enemies has way too many characters running around, and the end-result really makes you wonder if Mann didn’t take three different scripts and mash ‘em up. Worse still, Depp looks like he’s bored to the nth degree throughout most of the film, making it really hard to root for him (and Bale always overacts too much to root for).
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