Low-key, but engaging...mostly

Rating: 7/10 (9 July 2009)

Considering the track record of director Michael Mann when it comes to making crime dramas (Collateral, The Insider, Heat), I found myself surprised by the direction he took with Public Enemies. Instead of a nail-biting suspense movie set in the 1930s, I found myself watching a fairly low-key drama about the fall of one of America's most notorious criminals.
Audiences who come to watch Public Enemies expecting it to be a swashbuckling crime film will likely leave the theater disappointed. Some critics and film fans have faulted Mann for not putting enough adrenaline into this movie, and truth be told, at times his insistence on keeping this movie low-key as a whole does get a bit tiresome. Because of the film's overall lack of suspense, it finds itself relying heavily on the performances of its actors to keep audiences engaged. And for a crime drama without much suspense, that is asking a lot. Fortunately, the cast of the film is generally up to the task.
In terms of the performances in the movie, Johnny Depp is the standout, hands down. Film fans who know Depp only as Captain Jack Sparrow likely will be shocked by his understated and effective performance in this movie, which is a refreshing change-up for him, given his recent track record of films. Depp's best scene in this film, in which his John Dillinger tries to woo Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) at her job with a smörgåsbord of tough talk, is a perfect testament to why practically every girl alive is currently infatuated with him. Similarly, Christian Bale plays a role against type, portraying FBI agent Melvin Purvis, a promising agent who finds himself somewhat in over his head after he is assigned by the fledgling Bureau to track Dillinger down. His performance is not quite as effective as Depp's, but nevertheless is a welcome change of pace for him after he mailed it in as John Connor in his last film (Terminator Salvation). Cotillard does a solid if unspectacular job as Frechette, while Billy Crudup's J. Edgar Hoover is entertaining but slightly more cartoony than it should have been.
Mann's depiction of the 1930s Midwest, oddly enough, lacks much visual evidence of the Great Depression, and the film as a whole would have been better (especially considering the film's overall lack of suspense throughout) had he sacrificed some of the film's more melodramatic moments in order to give the audience a clearer idea of just how important the Dillinger case was in modernizing the way crime is fought in America, as well as how much Dillinger himself captured the imagination of Americans as a then-modern-day Jesse James. Nevertheless, Mann was clearly valuing substance over style while making this movie. For example, the violence in this film is played out in a fashion that stresses realism over showiness, even when the intensity of it is dialed up a bit, which is a nice change of pace from the stylized insanity of the violence found in many other crime flicks.
Though far from being a dramatic masterpiece, I found Public Enemies to be a welcome breather from much of what has been passing as entertainment in movie theaters these days.