I'd rather have seen "Manhattan Melodrama"

Rating: 5/10 (8 July 2009)

I've been watching a series of genuine 1930s gangster films -- "Little Caesar", "Scarface" and their ilk. Perhaps that's not the best preparation for viewing a shiny new re-creation of that era, using modern film idiom and equipment; and perhaps I was subconsciously influenced by the decidedly mediocre newspaper reviews. Perhaps I have simply become too far disjointed from the cinema of my own era, due to an overdose of pre-1950s movies. Or perhaps "Public Enemies" just isn't that good a film...
For whatever reason, I felt that the gulf between this picture and those earlier productions epitomised a lot of what I find most off-putting about modern cinema: the film was too long, too loud and too violent (those pre-Code films didn't exactly pull their punches when it came to characters beating each other up or hosing each other down with bullets, but somehow they avoided the sense of gratuitous gun/torture porn), the characters insufficiently differentiated (to the degree that I found it often very confusing as to who exactly they were), the dialogue mumbled or slurred, plus a pointless sex scene that contributes nothing to the plot. The film appears to lack any central moral idea; and by that I don't mean some kind of lecturing, finger-waving message about the evils of gangsterism, but the sort of simple central concept that one takes for granted in films of an earlier era, whether it be "He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword", "Friendship is stronger than the law" or even "Flaunt it, baby, flaunt it!" Perhaps this is more true to real life, in that things do just randomly happen or not happen without fitting into any particular pattern -- but I find the result disturbingly empty in some way.
Having seen a number of genuine 30s productions literally days before watching this film, I also found the period setting unconvincing; presumably they went to some trouble to get appropriate props, costumes, etc, but somehow it rarely felt natural. I'm used to seeing this era in black and white and not in processed colour, of course (the rather odd palette must have been a conscious choice), but the characters didn't look at home in their costumes, the hair and moustache styles didn't have the familiar 30s air, and the vehicles seemed museum pieces rather than everyday parts of the scenery...
But far more seriously, "Public Enemies" is no "Bonnie & Clyde", "Butch & Sundance" or even "Thelma & Louise", because frankly we just don't care that much about the characters. Depp's performance as Dillinger is particularly odd, because the way that this central character is presented by the script seems to be at odds with the way that either Depp and/or director Michael Mann have chosen to play him: we are, from time to jarring time, told about a charismatic, chivalrous, laughing crook who tweaks the tail of the law and is seen by a large section of the public as a folk hero, yet what we actually see is a dour, withdrawn, almost drab individual whose chief selling point appears to be the nonentity that enables him to go unrecognised on at least two occasions. Maybe Johnny Depp is trying hard to shake off the mantle of Captain Jack Sparrow; but the part is crying out for some of that larger-than-life attraction and charm, and without it the character not only falls flat, but rings false.
Maybe, again, this is intentional, as an attempt to deglamorise the gangster myth. But what cannot be intentional is the way that Dillinger manages to come across as not caring very much about any of the things that are supposed to be prime movers in the plot: we are told that he never lets anyone down, yet he doesn't come across as particularly engaged with any of his friends, we are given to understand that he is passionately attached to Billie to the exclusion of his own safety (although, inconveniently, he gets himself killed when he is betrayed by the madam who provides him with one of her 'girls'), yet the affair between them fails to convince, and he doesn't even seem particularly interested either in money or in the abstract thrill of lawbreaking itself. In fact he comes over as a dull cold fish, and the result, I'm afraid, is a lacuna at the heart of the film that has to be laid at Depp's door. He has more than enough acting clout these days to pick and choose his projects and performances, so he must have deliberately set out to present this interpretation, but I have to say I can't see what it gains the film.
I found this picture distasteful, incoherent, and -- despite or even because of the extended firefights -- tedious. Oddly enough the film that I was specifically reminded of was the remake of "Last of the Mohicans"; I was fascinated to discover that the latter was in fact directed by Michael Mann, making the resemblance presumably very far from coincidental!
The real killer for me, however, was the scene at the end where Dillinger is watching the contemporary gangster picture "Manhattan Melodrama" starring a newly-famous Clark Gable with William Powell and Myrna Loy. On the screen we have crisply-characterised actors and a fast-moving plot (we only see a few snippets of the story, but it's clear what's happening: Gable and Powell are old friends now on opposite sides of the law), clear lighting, attractive camera-work and, even in so short a space of screen time, actual emotional impact. In the auditorium we have muddy colours, an unattractive Dillinger peering obscurely from under his smoked glasses, and a turgid lack of tension in what ought to be the climax of the picture -- I really didn't care that much about him by this stage.
It was at this point, I'm afraid, that I realised that on the evidence, I'd really rather have been watching "Manhattan Melodrama" itself...