Public Enemies (2009)

This summer has offered a pretty bland movie going experience so far, and Public Enemies is no exception. Perhaps I set myself up to be disappointed after highly anticipating the movie for so long. Perhaps not.

The movie begins with two of the exact type of gangbuster sequences you would want it to: John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) organizes a jail break, and Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) guns down Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum, and that's all you'll see of him). Two driven, organized, powerful men at cross purposes that are bound to crash into each other. Heat for the Great Depression. Those two sequences are . . . mildly tense.

Director and co-writer Michael Mann has lost his edge. His last effort, Miami Vice, suffered from the same inert, distanced quality that puts, if anything, a fifth wall between the audience and the story. There's no way to get involved because there's nothing to get involved in. Forcing Jaime Foxx to quote The Eagles didn't do the movie any favours either.

Possibly worse was when I realized that I had seen this movie before, only better. No, not Heat, although I am sure that's what everyone was thinking. It's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Both are long, introspective looks at famous criminals and the men that killed them, peeling back the layers to reveal a criminal who has accepted said death as inevitable and a killer who cannot yet grasp the consequences of his actions. Assassination was exactly like the winter it depicted: cold, haunted, and delicate enough to contain the tender promise of spring.

Public Enemies is none of those things. It's dull when it should be exciting (unless it intended to make bank robbing look boring with occasional spatters of violence) and tepid when it should be hot (there's something weirdly chemistry free about the pairing of super hotties Depp and Marion Cotillard). Elliot Goldenthal's score is mismatched the few minutes it is used. Otis Taylor's "Ten Million Slaves" works far better when it comes up.

Mostly though, I would have killed for some exposition, which is a strange complaint for a movie that's 140 minutes long. But why is Purvis so innovative yet inept? What kind of man is he? Why is Dillinger so sad?* What's with Billie (Cotillard) and Dillinger's fatalistic take on relationships?

To say that Depp, Bale, and Cotillard offer great performances** is to say nothing at all. We already know that they are great performers. Mann drummed the personality and magnetism right out of them, and, in doing so, nearly drummed it right out of the movie. There's enough in the story (and the supporting cast) to make the movie worth watching, but it's almost in spite of Mann. Plus, Depp did me the great favour of singing, as it's next to impossible for me to see him in jail and not expect him to burst into song. C+

*Truly, if you could only use one word to describe Depp's take on Dillinger, it would be "sad." Ironic given that others will describe him as "jolly," and I think it may have been ironic on purpose. There's one for you, movie!

**Purvis' walk, in particular, killed me. It was a nice contrast to Dillinger's swagger and stomp.