Nearly but not quite

Rating: 7/10 (16 October 2009)

I was really looking forward to this movie. Johnny Depp for me is one of those once in a life time actors like Erol Flynn, Clarke Gabel, John Wayne etc. The sort of actor you just go to watch no matter what the film is.....
Public Enemies is set in the 1930's and details the end of one the biggest crime waves in American History, adding historical references such as the formation of the FBI and the introduction of the concept of a federal i.e. cross state line crime.
Halfway in to the movie, I found myself wondering if it was actually going to get started, there's a lot meaningless scenes, jail breakouts and guns firing without actually hitting anyone.
The second half of the movie is where things really get going and the menace shown by Depp is only bettered by that of his leading "gal" Marion Cotillard, in under played, performance with a sense of the femme fat-ale about her. This coupled with the menace that Christian Bale, tries but ultimate fails to bring to the Agent Purvis in charge of tracking down Dillinger and his gang, all add to a movie with promise.
This unfortunately is where things don't quite work...I felt as though the movie didn't explain the plot to me, perhaps as a non American not knowing the story of Dillinger etc put me at a disadvantage, but the tag line of the movie talks about a crime wave, but the viewer isn't shown in any real way (apart from a couple of bank jobs) anything like a crime wave. The FBI seem to know where to find Dillinger at every turn and there's a real sense of inevitability about the brutal ending.
To that end I was disappointed not because this is a bad movie with a bad plot badly acted with bad direction in 99.9% of it in fact the reverse is true... I guess I hate feeling like I wanted to see more, know more and for the film to never end, I guess that makes it a success, but I have a feeling there won't be a Public Enemies 2, so I'm left not really knowing any more than when I started.
The caption at the end says that Purvis killed himself a year later but doesn't really explain why and like wise the film pays little attention to character definition and I think it suffers because of it. I'm giving it 7 out of 10 only because a movie with Johnny Depp in it deserves 7 out of 10 just because of that fact...It could have been better.