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August 19, 2009
E-mail a friendYOUNG VOICES
Dillinger and Co.
Probably the biggest movie opening this weekend is the Johnny Depp-Christian Bale gangster flick, Public Enemies.
Directed by Michael Mann (Heat, Miami Vice) the film takes place during John Dillinger's brief yearlong reign of bankrobbing in the early 1930s, when he attained the spot of Public Enemy Number One.
In the film, Depp plays Dillinger, a sort of Robin Hood of his time who robs from the rich, and while not giving the spoils to the poor, is still seen as something of a folk hero. A regular guy getting by in tough times.
Bale plays Melvin Purvis, the lead Federal Bureau investigator tasked with bringing Dillinger in, dead or alive. Marion Cotillard, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, plays Dillinger's love interest. Along the way we are also treated to supporting performances by Giovanni Ribisi and Billy Crudup (as the cold and calculating J. Edgar Hoover)
While the film has plenty of satisfying action scenes (what's a 30s gangster movie without people shooting the crap out of stuff with tommyguns?) and both Bale and Depp are in top form, the film moves along without much pace or purpose.
We realize from the beginning that Depp's character is doomed, and yet even the inevitability of his capture is not enough to tighten the narrative of this film. Rather than playing like a Bonnie and Clyde-style gangsters-on-the-run story, this film is more of a sequence of loosely related scenes. Characters come and go with little warning or introduction, locations appear and disappear without explanation.
The effect of this is to make us feel somewhat like we're on the run ourselves, amid much confusion and muttered dialogue, enjoying a moment here and there, but never lingering on anything long enough for us to get comfortable.
While infinitely better than most of the other summer schlock cinema that's appearing these days, Public Enemies is no Untouchables, and I was kind of hoping it would be.