Fun but flawed

Rating: 6/10 (10 September 2013)

I liked PUBLIC ENEMIES but I didn't love it. It comes close to feeling like an epic at times, detailing the cat-and-mouse games between infamous bank robber John Dillinger and the G-man on his tail. Unfortunately the screenplay feels a little bloated at times and the truth is that while Michael Mann is a consummate professional as director, his films always possess a certain coldness that makes it hard to get close to the characters.
And that's the case here. Superficially, the movie looks good and the characters go through the motions with aplomb, but you never really care about what happens to them. Bale's protagonist is totally unmemorable, leaving Depp to hold the fort as the anti-hero of the piece, but whenever the film moves away from a complex action set-piece it falters. Depp's romance with Marion Cotillard is particularly gruelling and heel-dragging.
Nevertheless, the drama and excitement when it comes is very well handled, with the shoot-out in the woods particularly fine and the bank robberies all staged very well. As ever, Mann has a steely eye for the action so the film zips along when concentrating on them; it's everything else that's a bit lacklustre. In addition, the cast is so big that the supporting players, like Stephen Dorff, James Russo, Billy Crudup, David Wenham and Stephen Lang get lost in the mass, each lacking truly memorable scenes. The ending, when it comes, seems almost arbitrary.