Mann's flawed ambition is elevated by dynamic acting by Depp/Cotillard

Rating: 7/10 (13 July 2009)

PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009) *** Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup, Stephen Dorff, Channing Tatum, Rory Cochrane, Stephen Lang, James Russo, Giovanni Ribisi, John Ortiz, Peter Gerety, Leelee Sobieski, Shawn Hatosy, Matt Craven, Diana Krall. Filmmaker Michael Mann's ambitious but at times stalled take on America's gangsters during the Great Depression rightly focusing on charismatic fugitive outlaw John Derringer (Depp, showing the right amount of swagger and ice-cool control – his in-movie-theater brief self-satisfied smirk is worth the price of admission) and his gang trailblazing a crime-spree throughout the country much to the chagrin of up-and-coming Fed J.Edgar Hoover (a clipped-deliver, take-charge Crudup) whose prime choice, the relatively green but determined Melvin Purvis (pallid yet engaging Bale) is truly put to task. Mann manages the gunfights with supreme skill and the chase sequences with enough energy to keep things rolling merrily along until it gets bogged down with its own momentum of trying to be a great film (it's not, but a close cigar folks). Cotillard is incandescent, as Dillinger's flame that ignites his will to live despite the overwhelming odds.