Heat it ain't

Rating: 8/10 (16 September 2009)

Everyone tells you not to compare it with Heat, but it's almost inevitable. Of course Heat is the superior movie and Public Enemies can only lose if compared to it. Apart from the fact, that we have the same director here, we have some similar situations.
Two actors that are considered to be top players in their generation (De Niro & Pacino with Heat and Depp plus Bale here). While Depp (almost) lives up to that comparison, Bale fails to deliver. It might also be the fact, that his role is much smaller than the Pacino counterpart, but he's still less effective. There is one big scene where both of them collide (in the prison), which could be seen as a counterpart to the coffee scene from Heat. A great scene here and there, but while Heat explored Pacino and his motivations more, we get nothing from Bale. What drives him, his passions, his faults/flaws. And Heat had Val Kilmer. Public Enemies has a few great actors, but no one equals the Impact Kilmer had on Heat (even Dorff, in one of his better roles in recent years, can't reach that).
While all this might give you the feeling that the movie isn't really good ... it actually is. It's a pretty good movie indeed. It just can't reach "Heat" ... but then again, which movie can? And while I myself wasn't as aware of the real-life person Johnny Depp is portraying, I'm pretty sure Americans know him better and therefor the movie itself works better for them. Mann doesn't have to fill every little aspect of Dillinger, if people already know what happened (more or less). So it wouldn't be a bad thing, re-watching the movie, with the knowledge what went down in "reality". :o)