Lazy, loud, and underdeveloped

Rating: 4/10 (1 July 2009)

The first sequence promises that the film will be something new, smart and exciting and thereafter never meets that expectation. This film is wrought with platitudes, lazy writing, confusing action, and worst of all no real insight into the cat and mouse play and mentality of Melvin Pervis and John Dillinger. Furthermore, the most interesting aspects of the story, the camaraderie of the criminals and their careful planning before each heist, is almost entirely ignored. The film settles to force a trite love story down our throats while all of the characters are conveyed solely through what they say about themselves. Basically, the film is lacking what is called "conversation" which is poorly replaced by monologues and proclamations.
Another significant disappointment is that this film introduces few new things to the mythology of John Dillinger. There was a film in the 80s I believe called "Dillinger" which was an hour shorter and conveyed all of the relevant events of "Public Enemies". The only real difference between the two is that in the former a fabricated love story is absent and replaced by convincing acting and character depth. There is no sense in "Public Enemies" that John Dillinger is confronting the disorder of the Depression, no sense that he represents a departure from the status quo of the times, and no sense that any of it really matters in a meaningful way. The FBI exist because of John Dillinger, Hoover achieved the power he did because of John Dillinger, the nation found him to be a hero, none of which had anything to do with a girlfriend who gets slapped around for harboring fugitives and lying to investigators about a thief and a murderer.
One final point, John Dillinger kills not a single person in this movie for reasons I can only assume relate to inspiring false-pity. While this film could have given depth and insight into an almost folk-hero, it resigns itself to forced-love, loud and confusing action, and, as Michael Mann always provides, poor cutting and silly camera usage.
Skip and wait for DVD