Public Enemies (2009)

O Masterpiece

O Excellent

X Good

O OK

O Mediocrity

O Avoid

Review by Jason Pyles / July 2, 2009

According to The Encyclopedia of American Crime, by Carl Sifakis, the term “public enemies” was coined by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and was meant to identify armed “stickup men” of the 1930s. The notorious John Dillinger was dubbed “Public Enemy No. 1.,” which Sifakis noted, was a status he attained with a criminal career that spanned only 11 months in 1933 and 1934.

Apparently Dillinger was a somewhat chivalrous bank robber and incredible prison-escape artist whose loyalty to his cohorts even promoted some honor among thieves. Despite his designation as a public enemy, Dillinger was actually widely admired during the Great Depression era as a kind of Robin Hood for insisting that bank patrons keep their money, while assuring them that he only wanted to steal from the bank.

These and many other tidbits from Dillinger’s life are portrayed in Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies,” a convincing period film that features Johnny Depp as Dillinger, Christian Bale playing his pursuer, and Marion Cotillard as his love interest. Mann’s movie is authentically set in many of the historical locations where Dillinger briefly dwelled, including the Biograph Theater in Chicago.

The subtle master stroke of “Public Enemies” is when we see Dillinger watching the film “Manhattan Melodrama” in the theater mentioned above. Mann pulls a clever trick whereby he places us, the viewers, in the same theater with Dillinger, as the images on the movie screen he’s watching eventually fill the screen we’re watching. It’s been done before, but not this well.

For better or for worse, the film’s episodic plot is merely a cycle of bank robberies, gun battles, arrests and jailbreaks — over and over again. Though it is refreshing to see Depp step out of his typically bizarre, macabre roles to play a relatively normal person, overall, “Public Enemies” isn’t overly intriguing. Gangster film fans will know what I mean when I say this movie is more a “Road to Perdition” than a “Goodfellas.”

Certainly Dillinger couldn’t have been worse a menace to society than Albert Fish, one of his criminal contemporaries who was executed in 1936. Fish was a convicted child killer and cannibal who thrilled at the prospect of getting to experience the electric chair. (I bet he was shocked by his disappointment.)

Movies have the peculiar effect of glamorizing war and crime. So does the media. Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers” (1994) demonstrates both glamorizers in action by satirizing the way the media tends to sensationalize criminals, which of course, is depicted cinematically with stylistic flair. In the 1930s, Dillinger also captivated the media, and therefore, the nation. Indeed, here we are 75 years after his death, and Dillinger’s name is still appearing in newsprint.

Directed by Michael Mann

Johnny Depp / Christian Bale / Marion Cotillard

Crime 140 min.

MPAA Rating: R (for gangster violence and some language)