unofficial REVIEW complete analysis

Rating: 6/10 (20 July 2009)

PLOT:
John Dillinger was a famous American bank robber of the 1930s whose crime spree made front page news at the time. The film focuses on the year 1933, when between two robberies Dillinger (Depp) falls for Billie Frechette (Cotillard), while FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Bale) has been dispatched to stop the brilliant criminal.
REVIEW:
Even with its real-life-story aspect, this all sounds like your average crime movie, but there is more to it than that. What sets this film apart from its predecessors in the crime/gangster genre (defined by The Godfather, Goodfellas, The Departed) is its feeling of immersion into what is in the frame of the camera. Mann and his cinematographer Dante Spinotti decided to shoot on a high resolution format which gives the picture unprecedented neatness and clarity, and the shaky documentary style recalls Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum or United 93, with the movements of the camera giving real urgency and raw adrenaline to the action. Such cinematography is quite revolutionary for the genre, and even if the shaky camera effects are sometimes too much to handle, director Michael Mann succeeds in using this technique to produce a movie that feels very real. Add to that the loud guns, the stylish cars and the authentic period set pieces, and you can feel like you're in the thirties.
It is Johnny Depp's effortless but powerful performance that carries the film. The actor may be most famous for his interpretation of crazy captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, but he proves that he is definitely up there ranked as one of the most charismatic actors of this decade. Public Enemies is a crime movie, and it has its share of gun fights, but it doesn't fall into the dumb-entertainment-blockbuster category. It has an unexpected emotional core in the relationship between Dillinger and French girl Billie Frechette, beautifully interpreted by Marion Cotillard (Oscar winner 2008 for best actress in La Mome). The chemistry between her and Depp makes the viewer care about their doomed romance, in a way that elevates the film to an emotional level.
On the other hand, Public Enemies somehow disappoints by its lack of character development. The story line is nicely classical and there are some good scenes (best of all when Dillinger wanders in the police department), but the screenplay is rather weak. The focus of the film is not all on Dillinger's side of things, it is often diverted to top FBI agent Melvin Purvis (played with typical style by Christian Bale), who has been sent out to stop the criminal by any means. The structure of the film apparently aims at a two-way movement in the same style as Heat, where we follow both the gangster and the cop's stories, but ultimately it does not achieve this. We never get to know Purvis or anybody else, and sadly Dillinger turns out a bit shallow. It would not be fair to say that Depp's character doesn't have enough screen time, but by the end of the film we are left wondering who John Dillinger really was, behind the public figure we follow throughout the film.
VERDICT:
It's a slightly superficial effort, but Michael Mann has tried to show us a new way of filming gangsters. Once you get passed the typical crime movie tag, Public Enemies makes for some stylish entertainment, with a pure charismatic turn by Johnny Depp.