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Public Enemies
2009, Michael Mann
Michael Mann's 21st Century crack at the rise and fall of John Dillinger and other infamous outlaws of the early 1930s as Hoover's new F.B.I. pursued and killed them is a good looking but hollow exercise. Depp as Dillinger has a surface magnetic screen presence, but the character is given almost no insight and the film doesn't even have much to say about the myth, cinematic or otherwise, of the notorious and deadly Depression era bank robber. The other criminal cohorts get even less development, and among them Stephen Graham really goes over-the-top as "Baby Face" Nelson, which given Depp and the others underplaying their baddies just comes off as a cartoon portrayal left over from maybe Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy. On the law enforcement side Christian Bale is fine and steady as Melvin Purvis, the Agent assigned to Chicago to bring down the rampant chaos. But as with Depp's Dillinger there is precious little for him to work with. Marion Cotillard, who won the Oscar earlier this year for La vie en Rose, gets the only real emotional highs and lows to play in the flick, and while her whirlwind romantic relationship with Dillinger is underwritten she manages to bring layers to the character that don't seem to be on the page.
Of course Michael Mann can stage a shoot out with the best of them, and given the opportunity to replace his usual modern assault rifles with period Tommy Guns must have had him drooling since the idea of redoing the Dillinger story was first presented to him. Those action sequences don't disappoint in and of themselves, although there isn't a gunplay scene here that rivals the magnificence of the L.A. bank heist in the middle of Heat. Given how strong a film Mann's Heat is it would seem a natural fit that he could do a similar parallel track of both sides of the law sparring with each other in the 1930s equally well. But there aren't enough strong characters, no interesting point of view, and it is remarkably tension-free. I don't think it's just that the whole thing is leading to the well-known outcome outside of Chicago's Biograph movie theatre that left Public Enemies so tensionless; it just never seems to matter which agent or criminal goes down bloody, since we know there will inevitably be another shoot out coming soon enough and both the "good" and "bad" guys outside of Depp and Bale are pretty interchangeable.
The cinematographer Dante Spinotti (L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys) has now worked with Mann five times (Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider), and he along with production designer Nathan Crowley and the rest of the crew have a blast with the period detail, but there's simply no there there, as the phrase goes. The nonfiction book on which the screenplay was based did a really excellent job at chronicling the entire period and the complexities and specifics of the wide-ranging net the Feds threw at the problem, but Mann's film barely scratches the surface of that rich material opting instead for terrific looking trenchcoats and loud machine gun fire while a couple of the day's top stars look stoically at the carnage.
To me the Roger Corman A.I.P. produced version from the early 1970s directed by John Milius (on less than the craft services budget Mann had to play with) starring the great Warren Oates as Dillinger and Ben Johnson as Purvis pursuing him remains the best cinematic version of the tale to date. There's more wit and chemistry and intensity in any three scenes of Milius' low budget affair than there is in all two hours and twenty minutes of this latest attempt. There's still enough well-crafted cinema on display in Public Enemies to mildly recommend it, but it's a dead thing with no vitality or insight and in the end is a wasted opportunity.
GRADE: C+
Public Enemies
2009, Michael Mann
Michael Mann's 21st Century crack at the rise and fall of John Dillinger and other infamous outlaws of the early 1930s as Hoover's new F.B.I. pursued and killed them is a good looking but hollow exercise. Depp as Dillinger has a surface magnetic screen presence, but the character is given almost no insight and the film doesn't even have much to say about the myth, cinematic or otherwise, of the notorious and deadly Depression era bank robber. The other criminal cohorts get even less development, and among them Stephen Graham really goes over-the-top as "Baby Face" Nelson, which given Depp and the others underplaying their baddies just comes off as a cartoon portrayal left over from maybe Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy. On the law enforcement side Christian Bale is fine and steady as Melvin Purvis, the Agent assigned to Chicago to bring down the rampant chaos. But as with Depp's Dillinger there is precious little for him to work with. Marion Cotillard, who won the Oscar earlier this year for La vie en Rose, gets the only real emotional highs and lows to play in the flick, and while her whirlwind romantic relationship with Dillinger is underwritten she manages to bring layers to the character that don't seem to be on the page.
Of course Michael Mann can stage a shoot out with the best of them, and given the opportunity to replace his usual modern assault rifles with period Tommy Guns must have had him drooling since the idea of redoing the Dillinger story was first presented to him. Those action sequences don't disappoint in and of themselves, although there isn't a gunplay scene here that rivals the magnificence of the L.A. bank heist in the middle of Heat. Given how strong a film Mann's Heat is it would seem a natural fit that he could do a similar parallel track of both sides of the law sparring with each other in the 1930s equally well. But there aren't enough strong characters, no interesting point of view, and it is remarkably tension-free. I don't think it's just that the whole thing is leading to the well-known outcome outside of Chicago's Biograph movie theatre that left Public Enemies so tensionless; it just never seems to matter which agent or criminal goes down bloody, since we know there will inevitably be another shoot out coming soon enough and both the "good" and "bad" guys outside of Depp and Bale are pretty interchangeable.
The cinematographer Dante Spinotti (L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys) has now worked with Mann five times (Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider), and he along with production designer Nathan Crowley and the rest of the crew have a blast with the period detail, but there's simply no there there, as the phrase goes. The nonfiction book on which the screenplay was based did a really excellent job at chronicling the entire period and the complexities and specifics of the wide-ranging net the Feds threw at the problem, but Mann's film barely scratches the surface of that rich material opting instead for terrific looking trenchcoats and loud machine gun fire while a couple of the day's top stars look stoically at the carnage.
To me the Roger Corman A.I.P. produced version from the early 1970s directed by John Milius (on less than the craft services budget Mann had to play with) starring the great Warren Oates as Dillinger and Ben Johnson as Purvis pursuing him remains the best cinematic version of the tale to date. There's more wit and chemistry and intensity in any three scenes of Milius' low budget affair than there is in all two hours and twenty minutes of this latest attempt. There's still enough well-crafted cinema on display in Public Enemies to mildly recommend it, but it's a dead thing with no vitality or insight and in the end is a wasted opportunity.
GRADE: C+