Review: Public Enemies (2009)

[Jonathan Moya]

Public Enemies
 (2009)

A Movie Review
By
Jonathan Moya
3 Out of 5 Stars or B

The Plot: (from MRQE.com)

Based on author Bryan Burrough's ambitious tome Public Enemies:
America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-43,
director Michael Mann's sprawling historical crime drama follows the
efforts of top FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale ) in capturing
notorious bank robber John Dillinger. A folk hero to the American
public thanks to his penchant for robbing the banks that many people
believed responsible for the Great Depression, charming bandit
Dillinger (Johnny Depp) was virtually unstoppable at the height of his
criminal career; no jail could hold him, and his exploits endeared him
to the common people while making headlines across the country. J.
Edgar Hoover's (Billy Crudup) FBI was just coming into formation, and
what better way for the ambitious lawman to transform his fledgling
Bureau of Investigation into a national police force than to capture
the gang that always gets away? Determined to bust Dillinger and his
crew, which also included sociopathic Baby Face Nelson (Stephen
Graham) and Alvin Karpis (Giovanni Ribisi), Hoover christened
Dillinger the country's very first Public Enemy Number One, and
unleashed Purvis to take them down by whatever means necessary. But
Purvis underestimated Dillinger's ingenuity as a master criminal, and
after embarking on a frantic series of chases and shoot-outs, the
dashing agent humbly surmised that he was in over his head. Outwitted
and outgunned, Purvis knew that his only hope for busting Dillinger's
gang was to baptize a crew of Western ex-lawmen as official agents,
and orchestrate a series of betrayals so cunning that even America's
criminal mastermind wouldn't know what hit him.

The Review:

Public Enemies is all about the smiles.   The ones about getting away
with it all, pulling off the big one, finding love staring you in the
face, seeing your name up in lights and yourself on the big screen.
That big moment comes at the very end of Public Enemies when Johnny
Depp as John Dillinger watches Clark Gable in Manhattan Melodrama
walking sneeringly to his fate in the electric chair.  JD sees JD and
approves just as much as Dillinger admires the Gable style-- a style he
tried to duplicate with plastic surgery and that reedy moustache that
dominates his famous last photos.

In the polls of the time, Dillinger was more popular than President
Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh.  Dillinger even staged an impromptu
press conference and exchanged jokes with reporters during a prison
transfer.   He had an easy smile, style and confidence and a Hollywood
agents sense of public relations-- a shrewdly cultivated Robin Hood
persona that allowed him to hide in plain sight.  In his heists, he
would often destroy mortgage and foreclosure paper or give back the
money of the man who was cashing his paycheck. "We're here for the
bank's money, not yours," he reputedly said.   One robbery had the
Dillinger gang pretend to be a film company that was scouting
locations for a bank robbery scene.  Except for the press conference
and paycheck incident, none of this Dillinger history is in Public
Enemies.

Adapting Public Enemies from Bryan Burroughs lush nonfiction
chronicle, Director Michael Mann and screenwriters Ronan Bennett and
Ann Biderman manage to lose the human Dillinger along with his g-man
nemesis, Melvin Purvis in the march of facts.  Mann and Depp keep the
inner Dillinger in the shadows, showing only the guise--afraid to admit
that there was not much to the man beyond luck, bluff and that
Hollywood gangster style. There is barely a blush of romance between
Dillinger and his moll Billie Frechette (the vibrant Marion Cotillard
barely covering her French accent in a role that leaves her mostly
worrying and fretting alone in a room). The few scenes Deep and
Cotillard share before her arrest and imprisonment burr with a Bonnie
and Clyde promise cut short by the fact that she will outlive him.
Cotillard's coda with the wonderfully taciturn Stephen Lange playing
the Texas Ranger Red Hamilton-- a man of violence with a secret
gentleman ethos-- grants Public Enemies its only emotional grace.

The real Melvin Purvis was a short, skinny Southern lawyer who looked
like the nerdy Crispin Glover and talked in the high tones of Don
Knotts.   His essential qualities: brevity, unflappable calm and
tenacity-- embody the Christian Bale screen persona, the man of thought
prompted to action and greatness by rampaging evil events.    The
quiet enmity between FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Purvis that
Public Enemies displays was historically authentic.  Purvis' disgust
over Hoover's constant grandstanding and his what-ever-it takes ethos
would lead Purvis to quit the Bureau just scant years after
Dillinger's death.  If Dillinger was Public Enemy Number One than Mann
certainly makes the case for Hoover being Public Enemy Number Two.

Mann tries to fudge things by suggesting that Dillinger and Purvis
were really two sides of the same coin, the last of the old stubbornly
holding on while the new marches over them.  In Enemies it comes when
Dillinger walks into a safe house that is merely a front for a bookie
operation-- rows of phones and bet takers all making in a day what
Dillinger did in his last five heists.    Organize crime cutting loose
the unorganized criminal.  Dillinger was dead the moment he refused to
pick up the phone.  Purvis, however, adapted-- after the disaster at
the Little Bohemia Lodge Purvis brought in Texas Rangers with the
stomach and experience for the manhunt.  Purvis was Dillinger's self-
annihilating fury, his death wish.  Ironically, Hoover discarded
Purvis as soon as Dillinger's body turned cold.    For the next forty
years, Hoover was America's only crime czar.

The Dillinger-Purvis parallel bleeds the drama and conflict from the
story.  The immediacy of Dante Spinotti's high definition
cinematography and the actual use of Dillinger haunts such as the Lake
County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana; the Little Bohemia Lodge in
Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin; and the Biograph Theater on Lincoln
Avenue in Chicago, Illinois are reduced to newsreel and postcard
reminders.  Mann fails to be true to history and movie history at the
same time.  He should have tossed the dust and saved the lightning.
Public Enemies gets a B.

The Credits:   (From AllMovie.com)

Michael Mann  - Director / Screenwriter / Producer Kevin Misher  -
Producer Ronan Bennett  - Screenwriter Ann Biderman  - Screenwriter
Bryan Burrough  - Book Author Mark St. Germain  - Screenwriter Dante
Spinotti  - Cinematographer Bob Badami  - Musical Direction/
Supervision Elliot Goldenthal  - Composer (Music Score) Kathy Nelson
- Musical Direction/Supervision Jeffrey Ford  - Editor Paul Rubell  -
Editor Nathan Crowley  - Production Designer William Ladd Skinner  -
Art Director Bryan H. Carroll  - Co-producer Gusmano Cesaretti  - Co-
producer Kevin de la Noy  - Co-producer Maria Norman  - Associate
Producer G. Mac Brown  - Executive Producer Colleen Atwood  - Costume
Designer Bob Wagner  - First Assistant Director Julie Herrin  - Unit
Production Manager David Kelley  - Second Assistant Director Allen
Kupetsky  - Second Assistant Director Darren Prescott  - Stunts
Coordinator

With:  Johnny Depp  - John Dillinger Christian Bale  - Melvin Purvis
Marion Cotillard  - Billie Frechette Channing Tatum  - Pretty Boy
Floyd Giovanni Ribisi  - Alvin Karpis Billy Crudup  - J. Edgar Hoover
Stephen Dorff  - Homer Van Meter David Wenham  - Pete Pierpont Stephen
Graham  - Baby Face Nelson Jason Clarke  - John "Red" Hamilton Stephen
Lang  - Charles Winstead Len Bajenski  - Police Chief Fultz Lance
Baker  - Freddie Barker Michael Bentt  - Herbert Youngblood John
Michael Bolger  - Martin Zarkovich Ed Bruce  - Senator McKellar Bill
Camp  - Frank Nitti Geoffrey Cantor  - Harry Suydam Jim Carrane  - Sam
Cahoon Adam Clark  - Sport Rory Cochrane  - Agent Carter Baum Brian
Connelly  - Officer Chester Boyard Matt Craven  - Gerry Campbell Peter
DeFaria  - Grover Weyland Emilie de Ravin  - Barbara Patzke Madison
Dirks  - Agent Warren Barton Don Frye  - Clarence Hurt Spencer
Garrett  - Tommy Carroll Peter Gerety  - Louis Piquety Gerald Goff  -
Captain O'Neill Shawn Hatosy  - Agent John Madala John Hoogenakker  -
Agent Hugh Clegg John Judd  - Turnkey Branka Katic  - Anna Sage Elena
Kenney  - Viola Norris Steve Key  - Doc Barker John Kishline  - Guard
Dainard Diana Krall  - Torch Singer Andrew Krukowski  - Oscar Lieboldt
Keith Kupferer  - Agent Sopsic Shanyn Leigh  - Helen Gillis John
Lister  - Judge Murray Domenick Lombardozzi  - Gilbert Catena Dan
Maldanado  - Jacob Solomon Adam Mucci  - Agent Harold Reinecke Carey
Mulligan  - Carol Slayman Kurt Naebig  - Agent William Rorer John
Ortiz  - Phil D'Andrea Sean Rosales  - Joe Pawlowski James Russo  -
Walter Dietrich Randy Ryan  - Agent Julius Rice Martie Sanders  -
Irene the Ticket Taker Gareth Saxe  - Agent Ray Suran John Scherp  -
Earl Adams Robyn Suzanne Scott  - Ella Natasky Jeff Shannon  - Angry
Cop Richard Short  - Agent Sam Cowley Casey Siemaszko  - Harry Berman
Danni Simon  - May Minczeles Leelee Sobieski  - Polly Hamilton Rebecca
Spence  - Doris Rogers Stephen Spencer  - Emil Wanatka Jeff Still  -
Jimmy Probasco Christian Stolte  - Charles Makley Lili Taylor  -
Sheriff Lillian Holley Rick Uecker  - Edward Saager Mark Vallarta  -
Harry Berg Guy Van Swearingen  - Agent Ralph Brown Michael Vieau  - Ed
Shouse Wesley Walker  - Jim Leslie David Warshofsky  - Warden Baker
Alan Wilder  - Robert Estill Chandler Williams  - Clyde Tolson Kris
Wolff  - Deputy Patrick Zielinski  - Doctor

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya