Sturdy, yet over-familiar and under-explored; a tragic fumbling of Mann's playing to strengths

Rating: 6/10 (8 July 2009)

A Michael Mann film delving into the criminal psyche, paralleling the obsessive pursuits of cop and criminal, peppered with breathless shootouts and challenging new visual aesthetics. Sound familiar? Indeed, as Mann has been exploring similar subject matter throughout his film-making career, there would seem no more fitting director for Public Enemies, profiling infamous depression era bank robber John Dillinger and his relationships with a culture alternatively abhorring or hero-worshipping him and a law enforcement bureau tenaciously hunting him and branding him public enemy number one. But, as sad a realisation as it is, Mann's being the obvious choice to direct sadly detracts from his film's quality, as, with so many prerequisites for the subject matter, it increasingly feels that Public Enemies, for all its accolades, has preciously little new to say in regards to the gangster genre or in general, making it feel like an impressively realised, but inescapably overdone story.
While pinning down why Public Enemies feels like an unsatisfying watch in the midst of so many promising attributes proves elusive, the prevailing complaint is the familiarity factor. If anyone were to find more to say in the gangster or cop genres it would be Mann, but one of the most authoritative voices in both appears tongue-tied, unable to generate content which has not been ground into the mires of predictability. Rather than being an immersive experience, the film feels sketched in point form, hitting all the familiar notes (heists, a romance on the side, betrayal, desperation) without finding anything new to say.
And while Mann's copious adherence to factual period detail is particularly impressive, guaranteeing that his film at least credibly looks and feels like the 1930s, there is more to the story of Dillinger than he chooses to explore, making his film's familiarity unattributable to his sticking to the facts. There is an intriguing self-reflexivity element in making a film about a figure obsessed with movies and who styled himself after them, only to in turn inspire generations of movie villains after his public persona, yet this is merely one of many potential approaches Mann ignores in lieu of the conventional. Similarly, the character of Dillinger may be a paradoxical enigma, but the film seems to simply take it for granted rather than giving the audience the opportunity to see what defines or motivates Dillinger - his legendary charisma, focus, ethics, showiness, etc. While glimpses emerge (a memorable sequence showing crowds of people cheering as he passes, arrested, in a police car and there are hints of his living for the moment and not envisioning a future), one still gets the feeling than a more conclusive and contemporarily relevant take on the story existed within the project, which somehow became obscured and lost along the way. Apart from the occasional high point and a memorably resonant ending, Mann's film seems to simply drift along, never quite ensnaring the viewer's focus as it should.
The familiarity of the story also impacts one's enjoyment of Mann's telling, his typical attention to detail and nuance make the film feel overlong and dragging rather than engaging. Nonetheless, overdone story or not, there are few who can convey a crime film in as thrilling a fashion as Mann, and his usual flair for amplifying nail-biting tension and delivering expansive, inventive and jaw dropping shootout sequences does not disappoint (although it is frustrating to see the dazzling cinematography of many of the gunfights marred by unnecessary shakycam, making it difficult to see anything happening). Unfortunately, Mann's initially bold experiment of high resolution digital filming, aiming for a gritty, realistic look backfires, resulting in a grainy, out of focus look which literally hurts the eyes, making the 140 minute running time hardly a pleasant watch. But, even more frustratingly, the visuals are confusingly inconstant, with some scenes nearly indecipherable and others pristinely clear with glossy Hollywood lighting and composition. Mann's usual flair for appropriately stylised music feels similarly on hiatus, with a musical score which generally feels overbearing or downright out of place, apart from certain moments (the recurring heist theme) which click with his usual precision.
More commendable is the valiant attempt of Johnny Depp to redeem his under-explored character, offering an excellent blend of icy precision, quiet smirking confidence and a winking sense of fun - indeed, had his character been explored more thoroughly, his Dillinger could easily have been a character for the ages. Christian Bale impressively delivers steely reserve to his tenacious fed Melvin Purvis, but his character is tragically deprived of a backstory or context of any sort, leaving Bale struggling to redeem a painfully bland character (when an ending title announces his character's suicide the year after the film culminates, the viewer is left cold, with no real emotional attachment or sense of enough character to fully empathise). Despite mastering delightful arrays of charm and wounded concern, Marion Cotillard similarly flounders to rise above a tragic lack of character, dimming her and Dillinger's love story, the film's emotional centrepiece. Stephen Graham and David Wenham contribute much needed energy to the film as fellow lawbreakers Baby Face Nelson and Pete Pierrepont respectively, even if they too could benefit from further character exploration, but Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover feels irritating and unnecessary, forgettably chomping scenery to no viable effect.
While Mann's film is far from a failure (and in a cultural vacuum would likely be quite brilliant), it becomes increasingly unsatisfactory through the knowledge that everything good about it has been done better, often by the same parties involved. Therefore, while Public Enemies may offer a mature, impeccably researched and often thrilling profile of an infamous criminal, more often than not it sadly feels unnecessary, leaving one instead yearning for the more engaging films it took influence from.
-6/10