Public Enemies
Directed by Michael Mann

By Tony Sheppard
Capitol Weekly

“Public Enemies” tells the story of bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), who became both the nemesis and the inspiration for J. Edgar Hoover as he was expanding the FBI. It’s a film that I would expect to enjoy, despite not being a big Depp fan, as it has numerous other cast members and the fact that I usually like cops-and-gangsters themes. But there are aspects of the project that took me out of the moment and left the whole experience feeling flat.

I’ve enjoyed the work of Christian Bale (Special Agent Melvin Purvis) and Stephen Dorff since they were both child actors, albeit with some misses, and I especially liked the appearance here of some other favorites in smaller supporting roles: Billy Crudup (as J. Edgar Hoover), Rory Cochrane, and Giovanni Ribisi. But the film takes a somewhat stand-offish tone with the characters. After initially introducing the major protagonists, we don’t seem to be encouraged to sympathize with either side. It’s hard to tell if this is an attempt at being non-partisan or an avoidance of the inherent risk of having an audience side with a doomed character. But the outcome made me feel detached, not really caring too much about anybody’s ultimate fates. And there is a lot of ugly fate at work. In recent years police have lamented the advanced fire power of criminals, but there are enough bullets flying around in “Public Enemies” to destroy vehicles and buildings, as well as human bodies.

My larger problem with the film, and this may have been very personal, was in the manner in which it was shot. There was a turning point in the movie for me, during a scene at the Little Bohemia Lodge, in the woods of Wisconsin (and a historic location in the Dillinger story), when the nature of the action and cinematography suddenly made me acutely aware that I was watching video and not film. I’m not sure why it hadn’t occurred to me sooner than that, but it then bothered me for the rest of the movie. Film and video, depending on quite how the video is shot and what cameras are used, have a different appearance and at times “Public Enemies” felt like an extremely high budget home movie, or at least something that seemed sub-par for a production of this type, more like the video standards of a few years ago.

The story itself seems sound, and the problems I perceived may not bother others. But I came away from it in a strangely ambivalent mood, wondering if I would have liked it even less with a different cast or liked it better with different cameras.