Wrong focus on this romanticized crime film

Rating: 5/10 (25 June 2018)

It's okay to make a modern movie about one of the most notorious criminals in American history. And, the makers and cast of "Public Enemies" did a good job in portraying the main characters. Johnny Depp does a decent job portraying the fun-loving nature of John Dillinger. If anything, he is not as humorous or frequently smiling as the real J.D. And, Christian Bale portrays the always somber FBI agent Melvin Purvis well. Billy Crudup does a good job portraying the young, impetuous J. Edgar Hoover.
"Public Enemies" also is a good portrayal of the widespread lawlessness of the time. Prohibition lasted from 1920 to the end of 1933. Bootleg booze was big business and organized crime flourished. The Great Depression was on and many homeless and jobless Americans turned to crime. The almost wholesale corruption of law enforcement in Chicago made it a haven for criminals.
Thus, John Dillinger returned often to his base of operations after his bank robberies. To this extent, this film does a good job. But, from then on, one begins to wonder. Dillinger joked with the press and liked publicity. And, there was something of a cult following, especially among the young, including boys. Some had a skewed notion of Dillinger as a sort of Robin Hood. And this film seems to play along with that. If anything the dour Purvis is pictured as an obsessed pursuer.
Of all the criminal charges against Dillinger, he had just one charge of homicide against him. But this film shows him in scene after scene with Tommy Guns and pistols blazing away and people falling to the ground. Is one to think that Dillinger couldn't hit anyone and that only others in his gang were able to shoot all those people?
The film has a scene of a fictional meeting between Dillinger and Purvis. They never did meet face to face in real life. In the movie, Dillinger is behind bars and Purvis comes to look at him. As Purvis walks away, Dillinger says to him, that he should change his line of work. At that point, Bale (Purvis) stops and the camera holds on him a few seconds, showing that he's obviously thinking something.
What was the point of that piece of fiction? Might not the writers instead have had Purvis make that statement to Dillinger? That would have squared more with the matter of right and wrong among those shown in this film. After all, wasn't it Dillinger who was being hunted and constantly fleeing to avoid the law? Wasn't it he who was in the wrong "line of work?"
The film overall seems to have slight empathy for Dillinger and his girlfriend, Billie (played by Marion Cotillard). It never shows anything about the FBI agents, police, people in banks or others who are killed. There is no empathy for the families of those people.
"Public Enemies" overall seems to glamorize the lives of a bunch of brazen bank robbers and killers. It sure is a lousy public statement about right and wrong, justice and law and order. One wonders why this film was made at all.
Incidentally, the Tommy gun could be fired with a 100-round drum or a 32-round magazine feeding bullets at a rate of 900 per minute. In the film, the actors were using magazines. Yet only a couple of times did it show anyone changing a magazine. But many scenese showed the robbers firing the Tommy guns for long blasts, one after another. And never a change of ammo.