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Public Enemies
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Thanks for the thoughtful words Tom....that gave me a lot to consider. I've been looking forward to seeing it. I like Depp, Crudup and company but have seen my share of wandering films. I'll see it, of course, so I'll have to get back to you on this one.
Here's the review I posted on Amazon:Michael Mann’s Public Enemies is a realistic look at the last year of John Dillinger’s life.
Johnny Depp is Dillinger, a charming, dashing but totally ruthless bank robber. There is no romanticization here, either of Dillinger or criminals, such as in Mann’s Heat. The gun battles in Public Enemies are life and death, the blood, dark and visceral. In between robberies Dillinger hides in plain sight in Chicago. Dillinger pays the mob for safe passage, and safe houses, and the police don‘t seem to notice. We never learn more about Dillinger than he wants to tell us. When he’s wooing Billie Frenchette (Marion Cotillard) and she wants to know he is, he tells her “I was born in Morrisville, Indiana, my mother died when I was three, my father hit me because he knew no other way to raise me, I like expensive clothes, and fast cars.”
Depp plays Dillinger as the existential man, not making any plans for the future and he’s free to go wherever he pleases. The irony of that he chooses locales familiar to him. Dillinger is a much different type of pirate than (Capt) Jack Sparrow. Dillinger is remorseless, unflinching, and not about to allow anyone to get in his way. Dillinger sees friends killed by cops, he kills police, and beats people who are a little too slow in opening a bank safe, or are in his way in the moment he’s trying to obtain something whether it be money or women. The only little bit of regret we see expressed is when Billie gets arrested and Dillinger can‘t do anything to rescue her.
Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis, in a nicely understated role for him, no seething anger of Batman or John Connor. Purvis gets about the same amount of screen time as Depp’s Dillinger. J Edgar Hoover, played by Billy Crudup who absolutely melts into the role, is at a crossroads, his Bureau of Investigation isn’t yet the Federal Bureau of Investigation that we know today, and he needs to convince Congress that his Bureau is professional and warrants the budgets he’s asking for. Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, and of course the Chicago mob are all making Hoover and his Bureau look inept at best. He transfers Purvis to Chicago to get results, but Hoover’s Bureau of clean cut professionals have no practical experience catching criminals and soon they adopt questionable tactics, starting gun battles in the street with innocent bystanders caught in the middle, torturing witnesses, and in the end they don’t try to arrest Dillinger they gun him down in the streets of Chicago. I think it is interesting the movie is titled Public Enemies in the plural, is the unstated message that law enforcement were as bad as the law breakers?
Dillinger had the protection of the Chicago mob which provided connections for fast cars, safe houses, and guns and ammunition that outgunned law enforcement. That is, until Dillinger got too “popular” and started drawing federal attention to the mob who viewed Dillinger’s proceeds as small time compared to the “river of money they were bringing in which got wider and deeper by the day.” Arrangements are made to betray Dillinger and get Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation off their backs.
I was born and raised in Chicago and the degree of realism portrayed in Public Enemies is amazing. I saw echoes of Dillinger’s world when I was growing up and scenes such as in Union Station and it’s icy marble smoothness, and the iron shoe shine stands I remember, even the ‘L’ trains are the ones I remember from the 60’s.
Gangsters and movies seem to be a place where art and life meet. Gangsters and their exploits became fodder for Hollywood, and the gangsters saw their reflections in the movies. Dillinger’s last act was to see the movie Manhattan Melodrama, and perhaps the movies fed their egos and the “performances” during their crime sprees. Dillinger famously told people in the banks he was robbing to keep their money he didn’t want it, he only wanted the banks money, building a Robin Hood reputation. And before Purvis kills Baby Face Nelson in a shoot-out, Nelson is seen doing a James Cagney impression. I think by far Public Enemies is the best of the summer blockbuster movies, successfully melding action with a believable and dramatic human element.
I was actually looking foward to seeing this... Johnny Depp as Dillinger?? Wow never thougth he would be like a gangster.. and I mostly wanna see it for Christian Bale..
Can't wait to see it. Polish premiere is less than two weeks away.
I've been looking forward to this movie since last year... and it'll only open here in Finland on 14 August! Why?! Normally movies of this caliber open simultaneously in the U.S., U.K. and also here in Finland. Odd and annoying. Anyhow, I really love both Bale and Depp so it ought to be amazing.
I just saw Public Enemies yesterday. It was for my Dad's birthday. Did you know that in the 30's, they had rules for movies. They thought (back then) that movies were such a big influence on people that good always has to triumph evil in the movie. one of the breif and particular rules was that there would be no movies about Dillinger. I'm not sure about the specifics, but that's what my dad told me. pretty cool, huh?
btw--I enjoyed the movie, but there was alot more gun violence than the trailer led onto. the cast was talented, but Johnny Depp's eyeliner was distracting. Did anyone else think so?
ha ha I havent seen it... It really is? wow that sucks. He doesnt look good with eyeliner.
Della,The "rules" your father talked about were commonly known as "The Code", which was introduced in the 1930's. The Code specified all sorts of things you could show or could not show, for example, even if a couple was married you had to show that they slept in separate beds.
I don't think of the code as being cool at all, it whitewashed the vision of American morality for a good 20 years or more. The code was never officially dismantled, but in the 1960's when cultural norms really were in a state of transition after the squeeky clean (McCarthy era) 1950's, filmmakers were really challenging the code. At that point, rather than trying to keep these rules in place, the "rating" system that we have today emerged. Then you could make films with more explicit sexual material, or narratives that challenged morality, but your film would receive a rating that would restrict your audience. The ratings have changed over the years, so now you have films with ratings like NC17....
This is one movie that i really want to see. I just haven't been able to make it to the movies. I'm a fan of Johnny Depp; he makes good movies.
Christina wrote: "This is one movie that i really want to see. I just haven't been able to make it to the movies. I'm a fan of Johnny Depp; he makes good movies."I think you'll like it.
Oh, I really need to go see it!
I saw it last night and maybe because my expectations had been dampened by the middling reviews, I actually enjoyed it.Depp was good and really grew into the role as the film went on. At the beginning I thought that his prettiness was at odds with the more rugged macuulinity of the 30s (didn't Dillinger himself look more like Clark Gable?) But by the end I thought it was a strong performance as a man who knew he was the last of a line.
Much like the last Batman film though, it seemed that Christian Bale was outshone by the guy playing the 'bad guy'. Although, to be fair, his role was nowhere near as well written as Depp's.
There was some criticism I read that suggested the hand-held cameras were too modern for the setting. But, you know, people in the 30s didn't actually see the world in black&white as the old films might suggest. And I thought the handheld approach worked to make the film seem contemporary, and so differentiate it from 30s gangster films that had gone before. (Even Brian de Palma, a director who has never met a camera trick he doesn't like, shot The Untouchables in a fairly traditional way).
It is well worth taking a look at.
i'm going to try to see this today. there has been a great film festival going on that has kept me from checking out new releases.
i can't say i agree with all the boo hiss on this film. i liked it. depp and the rest of the crew did a fine job from where i was sitting, and the movie kept me interested from beginning to end. i'm probably not going to make any friends by saying this, but dillinger is kind of a hero figure in my eyes, and i liked it that the film explored the construction of the fbi and their "techniques" for extracting "justice"...cowardly bastards.
Hey, Philip. I didn't feel so much "boo hiss" as "meh yawn" about the movie. Glad you liked it. I'm curious, did you find Depp to be a convincing Dillinger?
hey tom,i got that from your post...other folks on this thread were more vocal about their dislike. that's cool. we like what we like.
i'd say depp was convincing in that i was rooting for him (dilinger), and wanted those damn FBi agents to all die a miserable death. but did he capture dillinger? i'm not so sure. i've only read bits and pieces on him (seems like someone i would have liked to have met), i don't pretend to be an authority on the guy, so i can't say for sure.
it's funny with depp, sometimes you just can't get past the fact that you're watching JOHNNY DEPP, the movie star. it's really hard not to have a kind of self-conscious experience whenever you watch him do something....like you never really get lost in the character he's presenting, but rather, "oh, look what depp is doing now...", and usually what he is doing on screen is very entertaining, so it works, but in this case, i don't know. when ms. cotillard is kissing depp, you're thinking, "she must be enjoying herself, she gets to kiss johnny depp", rather than, "wow, they're really in love". i notice depp doesn't tend to do a lot of sex scenes, that's probably smart - it would be hard to present it without this overtly gratuitous subtext.
cotillard seemed a bit flat as well, the interrogation scene worked, as did the final scene with her and the detective that shot dillinger. she has talent, but it might have been the direction. the main criticism i had with the film, was that a lot of time there was this self-conscious element going on. i felt the same way with the billy crudup portrayal of j. edgar hoover. it felt pretty self-conscious. but for the most part i was carried along with the story. i was so jones-ing for a new movie to watch on the big screen.
AND, last night i rented manhattan melodrama (the film dilinger is watching at the end of public enemies). it was entertaining. myrna loy isn't as confident as she is in the thin man film - most of her dialogue is a bit constipated...this must have been made about 5 years before the first thin man flick. william powell is a bit wooden in his morality, and gable is the only one in the movie who really seems to be having a good time. not a great film, but i am glad i watched it.
Well, for me Johnny Depp is the finest screen actor of his generation. I'll take anything he does over anything just about anyone else out there does. I'm able to forget that I'm watching Johnny Depp and just get lost in the character. I don't think he's ever repeated himself, amazingly. Such disparate people as Edward Scissorhands, Gilbert Grape, BonBon, Sweeney Todd, Willy Wonka, etc. are all carefully created and deeply individual creations, for me anyway.That said, I was curious about his casting as Dillinger. Now I know nothing about Dillinger the man, but the Dillinger I see in those pictures and in that newsreel footage comes off like a total macho thug, and I wasn't sure that Depp could carry it off. Not so much the thug part, but the macho part. I don't think this was a bad performance, by any means, mainly because Depp is too intelligent an actor to completely blow a movie, but I don't feel that it completely worked, either.
Curiously, we watched MANHATTAN MELODRAMA on TCM within a few days of seeing PUBLIC ENEMIES. A pretty bad movie all around, notable mainly for the chance to see William Powell and Myrna Loy in their first together demonstrate the incredible chemistry that so dominated the THIN MAN movies, the first of which came out that later that same year, in fact. Gable does his best, and manages some good moments, but it is Powell and Loy all the way. They're just magic together. The film falters when Powell has to get all moral all over the place, and Loy has to start suffering and all that, but their first scenes together are a joy to watch.
Phillip wrote: "hey tom,i got that from your post...other folks on this thread were more vocal about their dislike. that's cool. we like what we like.
i'd say depp was convincing in that i was rooting for him (..."
Cool, a review on Public Enemies & Manhattan Melodrama!
Tom,I pretty much agree with your 1st paragraph. I'm always conscious of it being Johnny Depp up there, but for me, I also see the character he's portraying, it's never "oh, it's Johnny Depp just being Johnny Depp again." I thought it a bit disconcerting that at the begininng of Public Enemies that everyone was calling him Johnny until I remembered Dillingers first name was John. Maybe I was a bit addled the morning I saw the movie.
I thought Billy Crudup totally became Hoover. I couldn't place who was playing Hoover the whole movie but I knew I'd seen him in other things.
hmmm, it was different for me. i recognized crudup right away; his accent sounded a lot like hoover, but of course, physically he was a bit different. i didn't have a problem with that. but i don't know, my only real criticism of the film is that most of the characters felt a but staged, perhaps i'm not expressing myself well here. of course you're conscious that you're watching a movie, but in this case, i was really conscious of it.i did LOVE the opening sequences and the photography. that sky over the first prison scene was amazing. the colors throughout were well balanced, i thought the film looked great.
My sister and her husband went to see it yesterday and she said it was a little bit boring. Scenes of shootings were taken from The heat with AL Pacino and Robert De Niro - just the types of guns and cars had changed.
Seen it and did enjoy it, especially all that visual glory. It's a beautifully made film. As for Depp and Bale... well, I couldn't help but think that the roles would have been better and more convincing reversed, Depp playing Purvis and Bale, Dillinger. He's got that chill and coldness, the menace that the role of a gangster like Dillinger needs. Depp would have made a great flawed cop. I had this thought almost as soon as the movie started and it bothered me somewhat. As for being conscious that it's Depp on the screen -- oh yes! He's almost ridiculously attractive, such a huge movie star that it's hard to forget it being JD. Of course, Johnny's also a wonderful, talented actor, but you cannot help but remember it's JOHNNY DEPP playing the part. That's his curse as well as his blessing.
I'm late to this, but I agree with Tom. My wife and I saw it opening night, and felt plain bored through most of it. Visually very appealing, but, man, it lacks sizzle. Wanted to love it, but left not caring either way. Sure didn't expect that from a Mann-Depp collaboration.
I've just finished the book, which I would definitely recommend if you're interested in this period - I quite liked the film, but the book is much better.It's interesting though that the book explicitly criticises previous films that have played fast and loose with history ('Bonnie & Clyde', for example). But then then spawns a film that rearranges scenes for dramatic purposes, kills people off long before they actually went and makes Melvyn Purvis - a man who messed up a dozen or more times - the good and efficient second lead.
I imagine if there's another edition this will be commented on.
No, not the Republican Party, although Christian Bale does a witty impression of George W. Bush as Melvin Purvis, the G-man assigned to solve the Dillinger Problem. It is kind of a clever idea, as Mann's film shows Purvis as borderline incompetent, but, like the rest of Mann's film, it is a clever idea that ultimately doesn't really add up to much.
Johnny Depp's work as John Dillinger is carefully observed if a bit remote, somehow. I just never really felt that I got enough of a sense of what makes him tick, or rather, I never got the feeling that what made him tick was interesting enough to carry a full length film. I could never quite shake my knowledge that Dillinger is, ultimately, just a criminal who finally winds up getting what is coming to him.
I'm finding it hard to find things to say about the film. I've seldom been so underwhelmed by a big event film. PUBLIC ENEMIES isn't bad, by any means. There are some memorable moments, like Depp's first glimpse of his future girlfriend, played by the glorious Marion Cotillard, from across a crowded restaurant. Their courtship is exciting and moving: they're the most interesting screen couple in a while. Billy Crudup has some good fun as a fussy J. Edgar Hoover, and Bale's Purvis, as noted, is an amusing riff on George W. Bush.
I think ultimately the film just wanders around too much. I appreciated the economy with which it was established that Dillinger is among the last of a dying breed: solo bank robbers are on the way out, replaced by the big business of the Syndicate who make as much money all day every day as Dillinger makes in one single robbery, without the attendant gunplay and hostage taking. If the rest of Dillinger's career and his pursuit by the (strangely ineffective) law enforcement forces had been handled as well the film would almost certainly have been a good 45 minutes shorter.
I lost interest, and started to think about other movies. Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE manages to establish the economic ugliness of the Great Depression, and Hill's BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID generates genuine human interest in its characters in ways that PUBLIC ENEMIES simply never does. PUBLIC ENEMIES borrows liberally from both film (Dillinger tells a bank customer to keep his money, as Warren Beatty's Clyde Barrow does, and Cotillard has a line about not wanting to watch Depp die that echoes a moment between Katharine Ross' Etta Place and the Sundance Kid). I'd say that if PUBLIC ENEMIES had focused exclusively on one or the other side of the law, it might have amounted to something. As it is, it just kind of peters out.