Michael Mann has always made good movies, always shot in his distinctive camcorder-style. Public Enemies is good but, somehow, doesn”t quite live up to what it could have been.
Johnny Depp plays John dillinger, legendary bank robber, and there lies the first problem: Johnny Depp excels as extravegant characters, those who are just a little out there and over the top. If he’s playing a real person, someone ground in reality, then there isn’t room for his extravagance. He has to play it as real and that’s just a little bit boring. The character, famous though he was, is not very interesting. He robs banks, gets arrested, breaks out of jail, robs banks–repeat till nausea. And the movie is about him so this leads to it not being very interesting aswell.
The film tries to counteract this by making it a love story rather than just a gangster flick, this is fine. Nothing more. Yes, Johnny Depp still looks youthful but the woman, his apparent love-of-his-life, looks half his age. This made it seem less real and so, in turn, I couldn’t quite get into it.
Christian Bale’s obsessive agent constantly chasing after Depp’s Dillinger is an understated performance, showing little emotion but still conveying that slightly creepy obsessive that someone can get. He is the best thing in this.
There are some good action scenes in it, something Mann has always been good at, but they are far and few between and the running time does drag on a bit.
Good, not great.
