Public Enemies Blu-ray Review

This is one Blu-ray you might want to lock up and throw away the key.

If you’re into gangsters and the like, then the chances are you’ll already know who John Dillinger was.

Bank robber, Public Enemy #1 and something of a Robin Hood-type figure, his heisty-shooty-chasey Great Depression era exploits have become the stuff of American legend.

So you’d think a biopic starring none other than Johnny Depp and Christian Bale would be a great idea, right?

Maybe not.

STORYTELLING:  
We join the action as the Great Depression reaches its height and as a dashing Dillinger (Johnny Depp) arrives at Indiana State Penitentiary (until very recently his own place of incarceration) armed with a Tommy gun and a whole lot of what I believe gangster-types refer to as “moxy”.

He and his accomplice break in, and then promptly break back out again with several hardened criminals in their wake. And so it begins. This opening sequence is actually based on historical fact and these escapees went on to become the ‘First Dillinger Gang’, gallivanting up and down the Midwest with their eponymous leader, taking from the hated banks and gaining a very positive rep amongst the common people of downtrodden, poverty-stricken 1930’s America.

It’s not long before the authorities begin to take notice of Depp and his gang’s rather brash style, and it becomes apparent to them that something must be done to stop him. That something comes in the form of a man, and that man’s name is, believe it or not, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). Yes, he sounds like an accountant, but he’s really a tough, methodical and tenacious cop with a jaunty-hat-and-badge combo to prove it.

An elaborate game of cat and mouse ensues, with Dillinger deftly dodging detectives and frustrating feds, and Purvis desperately trying to make the most of limited resources and political interference. Dillinger meets his love interest, Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), bullies her into dating him (but they fall in love anyway so it’s OK), and this story plays out in tandem with the overarching ‘catch-me-if-you-can’ plotline.

It’s not actually that easy to summarise what happens in this movie and there’s one very, very good reason for that. It’s because, story-wise, it is a big rambling mess. Quite what was going through director Michael Mann’s head when he was putting this together is anyone’s guess, but I’m pretty sure I know what wasn’t going through it, and that was any kind of coherent grasp of what this film should be about. I

’ve watched it twice now and I honestly still couldn’t even offer up a theory. We jump from gun battle to prison cell to gun battle, occasionally excited by the action but always slightly confused as to who’s doing what and why. There seems to be little direction, no detectable themes, and certainly no character development to speak of.

Depp turns in a low key performance, underplayed and way below his best. Bale does slightly better, managing to pull off a convincingly straight, methodical Purvis, but neither of these two usually fine actors are given enough to work with.

We end up with two lead characters with very little depth and absolutely nothing whatsoever about them that might enable an audience to make that crucial connection which will pull them through the story. Special mention here should go to Marion Cotillard, who does, albeit briefly, manage to engender some sort of sympathetic response as Dillinger’s confused, heartbroken moll.

There are some positives. There are some great ideas lurking in amongst the confusion, and some fantastic set pieces, with gunfights aplenty and some gruesome violence worthy of the genre.

There is a sense of the great bank robber, the ‘Public Enemy’, as a dying breed, detectable in the slow picking off of Dillinger’s gang, and the idea that cooking the books is becoming a far more profitable, and less physically risky, activity. The film’s historical period is very well realised, with the sort of fine detail you’d come to expect from a director like Mann.

But these plusses are not enough to pull the story out of the mire. If you like a good shootout, or you’re a diehard fan of underworld gangster movies such as this then fine, you’ll find something salvageable, but for the rest of us it just seems like a wasted opportunity.

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5 Responses to “Public Enemies Blu-ray Review”

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