Review: Public Enemies

There is a common misconception among my friends and family that I don't like action films.  I'd like to clarify here and now that this is not the case.  It's just that I get bored with movies that are about 80% loud, computer generated miss-mash, 15% cheeseball dialogue, and 5% plot.  If the film has a plot, however, and contains actual, flesh and blood human beings doing things human beings are capable of in the real world, I say bring on the violence and the guns!

Public Enemies is directed by Michael Mann, the same guy behind Collateral, Heat, and many other compelling films.  Here again he succeeds admirably, producing a strikingly beautiful film that is at once eye candy and incredibly suspenseful.  Public Enemies tells the story of John Dillinger, infamous bank robber of the 1930's.  He is pursued throughout the movie by FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), narrowly escaping numerous times until he is finally brought down while exiting a Clark Gable movie that fittingly appears to be based 0n his (Dillinger's) adventures.  (Is that actually true, I wonder?  If so, how perfect!)  Public Enemies is also a film about a crucial turning point in American history, when localized policing was beginning to give way to a more national approach by way of the emerging FBI.  I left the theatre having learned a lot about '30's crime, as well as feeling thoroughly entertained. 

I have been enamoured with Johnny Depp for many years now (long before Pirates, for the record), and will happily see just about anything with him in it.  He is fabulous as usual in this film, and continues to pull off eyeliner better than most women.  Billy Crudup (aka Russell in Almost Famous) is amazing as J. Edgar Hoover - I didn't even recognize him!  Marion Cotillard is also very good as Dillinger's girlfriend Billie Frenchette.  Her American accent isn't always convincing, but she still manages to pull off the roll.

The only part of Public Enemies that doesn't work is a totally cheesy cameo by Diana Krall, who appears for about half a second as a singer at the club where Dillinger and Billie meet.  For some reason it it just doesn't work.  That small part is quickly forgotten, however, overshadowed by the perfection of the rest of the movie.