PUBLIC ENEMIES 2.5***(almost 3***) The 1920s/30s was an exciting time for gangsters like Al Capone, Baby-face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and of course John Dillinger. These criminals were more famous than celebrities and lived like kings, if only for a short while. This was also the time of the birth of the FBI through J. Edgar Hoover, and the police weren't afraid to use brutal tactics to punish lawbreakers. So brutal that gangsters like Dillinger were revered as heroes to the public, like Robin Hood…. although while they robbed from the rich (the Banks)…they did NOT give any of it to the poor..

Director Michael Mann (Heat, Miami Vice) does this time period well and focuses on the most famous bank robber, John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), and the FBI agent charged with hunting him, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). “Public Enemies” is not a great gangster movie but it's not bad either. Johnny Depp is once again brilliant in his portrayal of Dillinger, and it also helps that he looks spookily similar to the man. Mann chose not to make this yet another romantic legend of Dillinger, but instead it's almost a documentary focusing on showing what the famous robber was really like..He wasn't just a peoples' hero, he was also a very cunning thief and a cold blooded killer.
Mann, by focusing on the facts and not the legend, had to sacrifice good character development and script. Almost all the other characters and their relationships in the movie seem thin because there aren’t enough scenes to show who they were. The main relationship is the romantic one between Dillinger and his girlfriend Billy (Marion Cotillard… the French actress who won the Best Actress Academy Award in 2007 for her role as Édith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose").She plays the lovely local Chicago girl trying to hold on to her values…she fights off the temptation for as long as she can, but Dillinger is that one man who was able to make her feel needed in a way no other man had. Cotillard is the kind of actress you like to see in romantic movies.
Surprisingly, this is not a fast paced movie so adrenalin junkies may need to adjust a little. It is a smart movie…a very stylized movie suited for most ages provided you can live with the violence. It is not blood gushing, but there is plenty of violence.
Clark