John Dillinger: like the film, good and bad at the same time

Rating: 7/10 (30 July 2009)

In the following review, when I say something is good or bad, I mean in my opinion.
I'll get right to it. PUBLIC ENEMIES is a good film. But not a great film. It's based on the book of the same name by Brian Burrough. If you want to know what really happened, I recommend reading this book. It's well researched and Burrough writes better than 99% of the writers alive today.
The movie uses some of the facts presented in the book, but jumbles them around to fit the Hollywood standard. (SPOILERS) The biggest change is the timeline. Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson died after Dillinger did. A few others:

In the movie Dillinger sees that a female hostage is cold and gives her his coat. In reality it was Harry Pierpont, one of the other gang members. - Hoover uses the term 'G-Men' in his press conference. In reality he wasn't so happy with the term. And it wasn't until later that 'G-Men' was widely used.

Another element that really bugged me was the whole persona of Melvin Purvis. In the film he's shown as a hero, shooting gang members here and there, while in reality he did more things wrong than right. He was a heroic, and no doubt a good man, but from what I've read, not a very competent Special Agent. There are a lot more factual errors, but you can read about them right here on IMDb.
I think Johnny Depp was miscast. He bears no resemblance to Dillinger; not physically nor emotionally. Dillinger was a farm boy, and I don't believe he ever said: "I'm having too good a time today, I ain't thinking' about tomorrow." I think they got Dillinger all wrong. The same goes for Melvin Purvis, but I said that already.
Then the good parts of the movie. Giovanni Ribisi has a small part as Alvin Karpis, and it looks as if Karpis is alive on the screen. Ribisi looks like him and plays Karpis exactly how I thought he would be. The same goes for Jason Clarke, who makes an excellent Red Hamilton and for Stephen Graham, who clearly enjoys playing the notorious Baby Face Nelson.
The Little Bohemia shoot-out is well-filmed and perhaps the best scene in the movie, together with the Biograph Theatre scenes.
I obviously need to watch the movie again, because it's hard to notice all the details films like these offer in one viewing. My conclusion is however: if you want to be entertained and don't care too much if the movie sticks to the facts, you will probably not be disappointed.