Public Enemies

Jul 07, 2009 | No Comments | @andrewmarcec

The year is 1933, America is in the midst of the Great Depression, and John Dillinger (Depp) just broke sevreal of his buddies out of the Michigan City prison.  John Dillinger is one of the most famous and most well liked bank robbers in the nation, he’s also public enemy number one.  With John Dillinger’s growing popularity, he takes an unlikely partner to the top with him, Melvin Purvis (Bale).  Melvin has just been promoted to president of the FBI by J. Edgar Hoover after gunning down Pretty Boy Floyd, and his next assignment is Dillinger.  As Dillinger struggles to keep his posse together, and puts his heart on the line for the beautiful Billie Frechette (Cotillard), how long will he be able to keep out of Purvis’ way to stay on top?

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John Dillinger to some was a hardened, dangerous criminal.  To others durring the great depression he was praised for his robberies, the public claimed he was like a then modern day Robin Hood.  John only stole from the banks, never taking a dime from the general public during his hold ups.  However all of this excellent character development and relateability was completely lost due to several poor choices in editing, writing, and even direction.  Michael Mann (Collateral, Miami Vice, Heat) attempted to bring the modern, gritty film style that he was praised for on his last several films into a period piece.

This film style doesn’t work for several reasons, but the most being that the period the film is set in is a very gritty time period in itself.  A majority of people were without work, several people were living on the streets, and the dust bowl blew through and worsened any seemingly habitable areas.  The gangsters and mobsters of this time period were all about flash.  They wore tailored suits, went dancing at fancy dance halls, drank whatever they pleased, in a sense they were royalty.  Since this film followed John and his crew it makes no sense to show them in the gritty “real” sense, let their actions be the stark contrast to a beautiful film quality.

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Also, the editing (both video and audio) was absolutely awful.  Elliot Goldenthal composed a simply phenomenal score that is incredibly moving, much like Bear McCreary’s work on “Battlestar Galactica”.  However, it is used at ineffective moments throughout the film confusing the viewer as to how they are supposed to feel about situations.  Also, the video is cut oddly where it appears that they were editing around bad takes, or scenes that were deleted.  The scene where Billie and Dillinger spend the night together for the first time is overlayed with them talking about depressing life stories leaving the viewer confused.  It also gave Dillinger a cocky, smug personality that never in any way came off as compassionite toward Billie.

Another aspect of the film that had good intentions and failed miserably were the shootouts.  Tommy guns lit up the screen for most of the film, and the execution of using actual blanks as opposed to just cheaply adding in digital bursts was a great choice.  However, as the bursts faded the ends of the barrels looked like they had sparklers fizzing out, and the sound of the guns constantly changed throughout the gunfight though the surroundings stayed the same.  Also, someone found it fit to equip a FBI agent with a shotgun and told him to fire into a house.  This would have little to no effect when you are over 100 ft away I would imagine, yet it not only broke windows but there was so spray from the pellets and left terrible damage on the house.

“Public Enemies” was a film with great intentions, but through these seemingly minuscule problems made it a two and a half hour death march that seemed like it would never end.  Stick to older Michael Mann films, and if you have to watch this one, wait for Netflix.

Trailer:

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The trailer makes it look so awesome!

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