Public Enemies is an unfocused mess of a movie.

Rating: 4/10 (17 August 2010)

Shot almost entirely hand-held on digital cameras, Michael Mann's Public Enemies feels like a home movie shot with a professional budget, its hard to comprehend cinematography fitting hand in hand with an unfocused story.
We open the film with John Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp, being led into a federal prison for robbery. As he is being processed, his gang is inside preparing for a daring escape, and Dillinger seems confident that he won't be there for long. After the escape, Dillinger and his crew launch into a spree of bank robberies, elevating him and his policy of only stealing the bank's money to fame and legend. To stop Dillinger, the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) assigns hotshot agent Melvin Pervis (Christian Bale) to head up the field office in Chicago, Dillinger's stomping grounds. Amidst the ensuing robberies and daring shootouts, members of Dillinger's gang are killed while he finds love in the form of Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard).
The romance between Dillinger and Billie is one of the biggest problems of the film. There is almost no chemistry between them, nor do we really understand why they fall in love. The whole affair feels incredibly forced and phony, almost as if we are lacking some key information that would make us connect with the doomed couple. Some may argue that this was a choice by Mann and since both performances are so good, I understand how it would be easy to come to this conclusion. However, if this is the case, it was a poor choice on his part, as during the final parts of the film when we are asked to actually care about their relationship we have no reason to do so. There is simply no development between the two characters, which must have been a theme of the movie as it occurs with literally everyone.
When I think about the gangster flicks during the height of the film noir movement, I remember how even the most insignificant gang member was given some form of development that makes them stick out. Sure, in lesser films these little instances of development were usually bogged down with clichés such as "the violent one", "the nice one", "the guy who likes guns", and so on, but it worked, it helped me care about people I would find repulsive in real life. "Public Enemies" doesn't attempt that at all. I found myself becoming confused as to who was who in the film among the various criminals. Dillinger's gang seemed like a mish mash of random bodies to be shot (even his close "friend" Red) and the other gangsters seemed like equally blank stand ins who exist solely to die in ways that beg us to care.
What's even more unforgivable is how unfocused the story of Dillinger himself feels as the movie progresses. The film seems to jump from event to event with no logic or reason. Maybe his development is happening between the scenes? By the climax of the film when he's reduced to a desperate man I started thinking about how powerful such circumstances would have been had we been watching a movie that actually knew where it was going and had a point. This is the movie's biggest downfall and one that ultimately killed it for me. Mann is presenting us Dillinger as is, with no explanation or reason, just slapping him up on the screen as if we are watching a documentary. Maybe some will be pleased with this choice, but for me, it makes for a poor movie and an ever poorer drama. If I don't care for a character, a movie fails, and if a character isn't being developed properly along with a story, I simply cannot care.
Unfortunately, the camera work did little to improve the clarity of the film. Mann chose to shoot pretty much every scene hand-held, which began to make me feel sick about ten minutes in. This choice throws any chance for beautiful shots and montages right out the window, leaving room for an ugly and unpleasant experience that is all too familiar with a style that should have died out years ago. Hand-held is fine for certain scenes, but it is not something that lends itself well to an entire film. Combined with the who is who nature of the characters, the films cinematography made it almost impossible for me to decipher what the hell was going on.
Which is a pity, as there are some damn fine performances in the film. Depp was unsurprisingly good, if quite reserved as Dillinger, and Bale pulled off a admirable job as his nemesis. The best of the lot was easily Cotillard as Billie, a performance that actually made the film seem better than it actually was (such an achievement is usually Depp's doing). She was beautiful and believable, her characterization almost made me care about the relationship between her character and Dillingeralmost.
I'm trying to remember more of the film to critique, but I'm actually finding it hard to recall. The unfocused nature of the script and Mann's directorial choices leave the film as a blur in my mind. Even as it began to draw to a close I found myself pondering how we reached this point. How did these series of seemingly random events get us to this stage of a story? Which is a shame. The story behind the movie is a fascinating one, one that is rich with potential to turn into a great film. This wannabe docudrama is a mine of missed opportunities, an okay film that could have been outstanding. Of course, what can you expect from a film that simply presents things to you as they supposedly were, one that tries to develop the lead character with one line: "I rob banks."