Missed the potential for something that could have been great

Rating: 5/10 (5 July 2009)

Public Enemies - an intriguing crime drama set in Depression-era Chicago telling the story of one of the greatest bank-robbers, his love and how he got caught, with a great cast and a renowned director. Sounds good? It should be
This is a film that disappointingly fails to live up to anything it should and easily could have done, except for the one redeeming feature for which I've awarded the film three of its five stars – Johnny Depp's performance. He captures the cool, suave complex genius of the very interesting character of John Dillinger. It is a great shame his performance was held back by a lousy screenplay, as if it were not I would consider the performance a potential Oscar contender.
However the perfection of one performance is not enough to carry through the entire film. The primary problem of Public Enemies as a film in general was its weak plot. It was thin and boring, with little happening other than a loud gunfight every ten minutes or so, which wouldn't be terrible if either the gunfights were fun or the it had something interesting to say either with the content or the style.
Michael Mann had the fantastic potential of being the first director to make a Depression-era movie in the midst of the worst recession since the Depression. However we get not one indication of the fact that the events take place during the Depression. In fact, we have barely any indication it's happening in the thirties other than elements of costume and the cars they drive. In this reviewer's opinion this film instantly cries out to be shot in a 1930s style. The fact that the real John Dillinger modelled his entire existence and behaviour on films he saw after coming out of prison in 1933 after ten years should indicate the appropriateness of an old cinematic style – cheesy lines included. Yet Mann for some reason chooses to shoot the film in HD digital. It had some very nice effects – clear colours and lighting and a beautiful night scene = yet it was completely incongruous to the atmosphere of the 1930s the film should have maintained. The hand-held sharp style is meant for modern edgy intense drama, which this film was not. I don't know why nobody said to Mann before he started shooting in digital 'If you're going to make a Period film, then MAKE A PERIOD FILM!' Also the omission of any mention of the Depression is ridiculous considering the interesting concept of someone stealing huge amounts of money for self-preservation in a time when so many people have none. Even Peter Jackson's 'King Kong' had a significantly better social commentary on the Depression, and that was a movie about a giant gorilla. The film also failed to look into the interesting character that was J. Edgar Hoover – a man so committed to propriety and rigid justice when he was secretly a gay transvestite. It showed him, yet no signs of any sort that he was a remotely interesting person. This is another reason why I almost fail to see the point of making a historical film when you miss out so much of what makes the history interesting.
Further elements of the plot were simply ridiculous: the great love story between John and Billie was based on one two-minute scene, which is meant to make the audience believe that these two people would nearly die for each other. That's quite a suspension of disbelief for a film that's clearly trying to be realistic.
The performances were also quite dreadful. Marion Cotillard, who was so fantastic as Edith Piaf in 'La Vie en Rose', failed to deliver anything interesting to her part other than a weird accent. Cotillard seems to belong alongside Penelope Cruz in the branch of actresses who are brilliant in their own language but fail to act at all when they have to concentrate on speaking English. Christian Bale, who has been continually disappointing recently considering the great potential he has as an actor, gave absolutely no life or intrigue to his character of the determined G-man hunting Dillinger – he was simply a boring cop. Although to be fair to both of them, the screenplay gave them very little to work with in terms of acting or characterisation.
The one good scene is that in which Johnny Depp walks right into the police office supposedly hunting him, looks around, talks to people and nobody notices him. Though mostly due to Depp's performance, this was a brilliantly done scene and earns the film another of its stars.
However such individual things can't redeem the film from the critical ditch where it deserves to lie. Mann did seem to be trying to get a comparison between the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security – the War on Crime to the War on Terror (the idea of the police torturing the suspects illegally was particularly humorous). However, this was once again under-explored and inconsistent, as the film did seem to be continuously glorifying John Dillinger and I really can't see any American film director allowing a film to be released that even subconsciously subtly glorified Osama Bin Laden.
So my overall view is that while it had some good elements, Public Enemies is a film that failed to live up to the great potential it had for something really interesting.