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LIGHT:  
As with some of his previous works, Mann and his cinematographer Dante Spinotti have elected to shoot Public Enemies on digital HD rather than traditional 35mm film.

A bold choice, especially given the period setting of this movie, and you’ve got to award some points for trying to do something fresh.
Unfortunately, this particular experiment in style yields poor results.

The clear, crisp, slightly edgy digital HD lends some of the film’s scenes a level of realism normally unseen in historical movies, but this jars rather badly with the setting. The shaky, hand-held camerawork, again designed to heighten the realism, simply makes parts of the film look like ‘Miami Vice’ with fedoras.

The transfer is also something of a disappointment. Inconsistencies occur right from the start, with some off-putting shimmering going on in the background as Dillinger and accomplice approach the prison.

From there on it’s a total lottery as the frenetic edit switches between beautifully rendered to grainy as hell, resulting in an overall look and feel as muddled as the plot.

VIBRATION:  
Presented in DTS HD 5.1, there’s some brilliantly realised FX here, the best example being the ferocious drilling of the gang’s Tommy guns as they mow down local law enforcement drones.

Scary, intimidating, and very real – just how it should be. The score, too, has its moments, blended skilfully with period music and used to great effect throughout.

However, the sound on this film suffers from a rather worrying problem. Throughout, for no discernable reason, the volume levels bounce up and down alarmingly.

You’ll literally be reaching for the volume control midway through an actor’s sentence as his voice is inexplicably drowned out by the score and you totally miss what he’s saying, or you might find yourself having to hit ‘pause’ or even ‘mute’ as your eardrums are suddenly stunned by what has to be the loudest ever recorded ‘car door closing’ sound effect.

There was a point near the end where I actually had to put the subtitles on in order to get through it. It’s quite ridiculous and, unfortunately, it only adds to the film’s problems.