Public Enemies
July 5, 2009
If Michael Mann was watching a lot of old Warner Brothers gangster films during preparation for his John Dillinger epic you wouldn't know it by “Public Enemies”, which is about as far flung from the familiar 1930's melodramas as the genre gets. Case in point, if there's a close up in “The Public Enemy”, “Little Caesar”, or “Scarface”, it's simply a reaction shot, as was the norm in the glory days of studio film-making, and the respective directors of those films, William Wellman, Mervyn LeRoy, and Howard Hawks were three of the best at establishing that standard practice during the better years post-sound, but if you were to tell Howard Hawks that one day he'd be able to shoot “Scarface” with nothing but hand-held cameras in almost complete tight close-up, he'd tell you to go back to the future. What Mann does with his film is exactly that, or close to it, as if, in cover for a story that is either too familiar or too simple, his always impressive action film style has evolved into an almost endless 140 minutes of deep focus close ups and tracking shots. To say Sergio Leone would be proud is even an understatement, Leone used his famous close-ups sparingly, during duels or shoot outs, centering his wide-screen frame so close that often it was just a pair of eyeballs within a left and right bit of dead space, and it was as much ironic as it was dramatic, here it becomes disorienting, and in a film that relies more on character relationship than plot development (who doesn't know the story of John Dillinger by now?), disorientating isn't exactly what you want.
Aside from Mann's persistence in filming close and on-the-run, and a lack of characterization aside from the central three figures – Johnny Depp as Dillinger, Christian Bale as dogged FBI hunter Melvin Purvis (the public enemies of the title, in a clever duel reference to the 1931 Cagney classic and FBI Most Wanted list), and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard as Dillinger's lover – the film is generally exciting and unconventional. The intense scrutiny of Mann's camera leaves nothing to hide in the performances; Depp, as always, is adept at creating a larger-than-life figure (Willy Wonka, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Captain Jack, Sweeney Todd) that has personal flaws as much as he does professional ambition and headstrong ideals and ideas; Bale does his usual Christian Bale, brooding and intense, intent on catching his man despite a newly formed task force that is half babes in the woods, half ruthless bounty hunters; and Cotillard, a natural beauty who need not exploit her looks for lack of dramatic flair, is sympathetic and tough, caught in an affair that is destined for disaster, but reluctantly thrilled at the intrigue of Depp's devotion. The long running time spreads out these three interesting characters in a painstakingly authentic Depression Era setting filled with faceless G-men, post-Capone Chicago gangsters, gun gang cronies, a few famous names (Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd), and a few bit characters, like a madame who dimes on Johnny, or an agent who takes a phone-book to Cotillard in the film's toughest scene, who come and go as the plot needs tightening, and frankly, they're all adhesive holding the loose seems together for our better fleshed out stars. I would have liked more of Depp and Cotillard, or more of Depp and Bale, less of Baby Face Nelson and his loud tommy gun, and less of Billy Crudup as the standard sweet bully characterization of J. Edgar Hoover, but that's a necessity of all true story films presented as epic and intimate alike.
Michael Mann has made variations on this film's themes for a long time now, be it the two-man macho cat-and-mouse game of “Heat” and “Collateral”, the loud, annoying pyrotechnics of “Miami Vice”, or the one-man-against-the-system dynamics of “The Insider”, but this time his story is real, impossibly well known, and suffers from decades and decades of genre expectations. He does his best to shake things up, and though it's a mixed bag, with too much emphasis on a hand-held camera style that grows tiresome after awhile, the performances are there, and it might be the first gangster film since “L.A. Confidential” to totally be of its era, without sinking to parody or cliché.
By Adam Suraf