Orchestral gun play by Michael Mann

Rating: 8/10 (26 June 2009)

Public Enemies reaffirms Michael Mann as one of the true auteur directors of this generation. Easily duking it out with 2004's Collateral for second place in the Mann canon, it falls short of his 1992 masterpiece Last of the Mohicans, which I hold in regard as one of the five best movies ever made.
While Mohicans has left Mann with very large shoes to fill, Public Enemies sees Mann return to elements which worked to perfection in the earlier film, seemingly using it as a template to re-attain past glory.
Based on Bryan Burrough's non-fiction book "Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34", it tells the depression-era tale of the virtual blood feud between FBI special agent Melvin Purvis (Bale) and John Dillinger (Depp), and to a lesser extent other gangsters like Baby Face Nelson (Graham), Pretty Boy Floyd (Tatum) and Alvin "Creepy" Karpis (Ribisi).
With the exception of Nelson, Mann relegates the others to little more than filler material to illustrate the world in which Dillinger moved. Capone henchman Frank Nitti (Camp) even makes a few appearances for good measure. None of this amounts to much as it's the manhunt involving Purvis and Dillinger which takes center stage.
Facing mounting pressure by nascent FBI director and architect J. Edgar Hoover (Cudrup), Purvis, whose entire career is on the line, revolutionizes detective practices by calling upon the latest technological advancements (archaic by today's standards) such as wiretaps, vinyl recordings of telephone conversations, early forensics and the like to track the nation's criminal prey.
Depp's Dillinger is portrayed as a principled gangster who eschews robbing the common man in favor of large banks, and restrains from excess violence, unlike fellow gangster Nelson who is portrayed as an unhinged psychopath.
Dillinger's Achilles Heel in this story is former coat check girl Billie Frechette (Cotillard), his love who is exploited by the FBI in their quest to track the charismatic hood.
Under Mann's guidance, Depp is allowed to bring his full range of talents to bear in his portrayal of Dillinger, alternately showing the character's ruthlessness, gentlemanly, egalitarian, brazen and egotistical nature. It's a tour-de-force by Depp that doesn't for one second come across as an actor pulling out all the stops.
In keeping with the gold-standard artistic template Mann first established with Last of the Mohicans, he makes copious use of a hypnotic orchestral score by Elliot Goldenthal, which evokes strong similarities to the Randy Edelman and Trevor Jones opus that drove Mohicans. And, like many of Mann's films, the film is populated by several extended sequences with little dialog, copious violence, and entrancing orchestral music – all Mann trademarks, and all signs that you're watching a movie created by a truly talented director who knows how to deliver the perfect cinematic blend between artistry and commercialism.