Public Enemy, but not Chuck Dee Public Enemy Public Enemy

Rating: 7/10 (18 August 2009)

Decent Michael Mann movie. Kept me riveted to the chair as I was watching it, and I don't demand much more of a movie.
A few points of gratuitous criticism, though:
*The movie takes a few too many liberties with history; I realise this is not a History Channel documentary, but it should at least loosely adhere to the real order of things; to point out one rub, we see Pretty Boy Floyd getting shot at the beginning of the movie, although he was actually killed after Dillinger.
*Most of the movie is shot in digital video, on a Sony HD video camera; I was disappointed. The images were grainy and too contrasty, and even skewed -- circles looked like ellipses. The few scenes shot on regular film were a visual relief. Basically the cinematography was crap.
*In one scene a fed beats a girl and is wrestled down to the ground by his boss. I found that scene unbelievable and gratuitous -- after all, innocent bystanders are getting killed, and a hard-as-nails cop takes umbrage against a gangster moll being roughed up?
*Unlike shown in the movie, Dillinger was dating other women than Billie Frechette; e. g. the girl he went to the Biograph with was his actual-life girlfriend.
*Unfortunately, the movie makes no mention of the Great Depression and the economic circumstances it was set in. In the current economic crisis, many people would have liked to see more of the situation in a previous one.
*A few scenes didn't gel. For example, I could have sworn that Dillinger got shot dead in the Little Bohemia shootout scene, and in the next scene he's jumping around. Maybe I'm just slow.
What I really did enjoy were the cinema gags. For example, Dillinger sits in the cinema when the lights go on and the voice from the silver screen tells viewers to look left and right if their seatmate is John Dillinger.
I also liked the detail of Dillinger going with the times and sporting a (badly cut) Clark Gable-moustache at the end of the movie.