Blair Witch Gangsters

Rating: 6/10 (4 July 2009)

This is what happens when a talented person mistakes an instrument for a tool.
Cinéma vérité is back, at least for this director. Michael Mann began his career as a documentary filmmaker. He graduated to film with the excellent Thief with James Caan and then Manhunter. More recently, I think he peaked and maybe topped his other works with The Insider from 1999. In some ways, with Public Enemies, his sensibilities may have come full circle. Using the CineAlta after flirting with Viper film stream camera in Miami Vice and Collateral, allows Mann to film an inordinate amount of shots in more diverse conditions. He can do, hand-held shots to his hearts content, he can do many more setups and no longer does he need to stop to change film mags. He can shoot in any lighting conditions, or so he convinces himself. He is now shooting total documentary style. He smashes the camera right into the cheeks of his actors. Can't you feel it? It's ultra real man.
The characters are all well done, though it is hard to tell sometimes with the camera bouncing around like a ping pong ball. Depp is good as Dillinger, while Bale fares a little on the weak side with Purvis. Out of all the characters, I would think Stephen Lang as Charles Winstead was the most authentic and interesting. He reminds me of my uncle Sonny, now passed but who was a bounty hunter and federal marshal. He was from the same area of north Texas/southern Oklahoma like the real Winstead. Lang's body language and manor are beyond authentic. He is dead on.
The film takes us places we've already been and shows us things we've already seen a million times before. The close calls Dillinger makes through the film are bright spots, but not nearly enough in a story that seems all too familiar. But again, Michael Mann was really trying to give us a documentary.
The problem is, Public Enemies is not a documentary. Though it was filmed in a faux- guerilla style with a digital hand-held half the time. There were no digital hand-held cameras in the 1930s, and the effect just pulls you right out of the movie. So again, this is no documentary, as there are actors and sets. There are props and special effects and computer generated blood. There are huge historical liberties taken with the script. And I have rarely seen any documentary where they barrage the viewer with 2 and a half hours of hand-held camera work. In fact, most documentary filmmakers are careful to show you things in a very direct and succinct way.
The audio sounded like it was recorded in a shoebox. The film score appears as if there is another movie playing in the background. And aside from being aesthetically uninteresting, problematic with motion work, having inconsistent color tones, and images which over-sharpened in post processing, the Cinealta camera has given Michael Mann the ability to shoot anything he likes at the moment. And this is the biggest of all the film's problems. Shaking the camera is not representative of reality. All those old cars and fancy hats don't do the trick. The film does not feel realistic, it feels as if there is a real lack of vision. Limitations in any medium are what focuses your abilities to create. Adversity breeds creativity, what you are left with after this process, is called vision. The lack of restraints in shooting method have left this film feeling haphazard and unfocused.
In short, I liked this film a lot more the last time I saw it when it was called Heat.
Also based somewhat on real characters and events, Heat was an epic film. And though overlong, tells an all too familiar story of these bank robbers and their dance with fate. It is still a beautiful work and shows no lack of vision.
Public Enemies is by no means a bad film. And technically since it was not shot on film, it can't be called one maybe. Like George Lucas and his techno toy Star Wars prequels, I think Public Enemies is a technical exercise from a person more interested in working with a new tool, rather than making music with a new instrument.