Review

Review Date: 4-July-09
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Junk

Public Enemies (2009)

I recently revisited Michael Mann's Collateral and admired anew its sustained tension and psychological underpinnings. It was enough to make me slightly hopeful about his latest film, Public Enemies — slightly because biographies are tricky and hoodlums are the least interesting subject imaginable. Alas, even my wee granule of hope was disappointed. Despite two highly appealing stars, Public Enemies is dull as dishwater and an utter waste of time.

Public Enemies traces John Dillinger's heyday and downfall as a bank-robber in the 1930s. There is no reason to take notice of him except for the fact that he is portrayed by Johnny Depp. Cool and sexy, with a little boy's yearning underneath, Depp's Dillinger is easy to watch but essentially hollow. The movie drops hints about his past experiences, motivations, and impact on American society and then abandons them to connect the dots between his hold-ups and escapes from the law. He is a man coming from nowhere headed towards death, which makes him exactly like every other anonymous person who ever lived. His story consists of scenes of nondescript guys shooting tommy guns which would lull a body to sleep if they weren't so loud.

If the film leaves Depp in a snore-fest, it does a worse number on Christian Bale as the federal agent hired by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI to hunt Dillinger and his rivals for the title of Public Enemy Number One. It seems that the editor left half of Bale's work on the cutting floor. An attempt is made to contrast his character with harder, crueler men, but with so little explanation that his actions and reactions appear meaningless. Why is he in the business if it disgusts him? The notice at the end of the film that the agent he plays committed suicide elicits a shrug rather than a gasp. He is also nobody we have come to know.

Although Bale is a nonentity, Depp does not have the spotlight to himself. Trying for a touch of feeling, the movie shows how Dillinger wooed a working girl who stuck by him to the end. Marion Cotillard, recent Oscar winner and finest French export since the baguette, matches Depp in the charisma department but fares only slightly better with her role. I would love to see these two actors reunite for a picture where they were more than historical shadows.

The one part of Public Enemies I enjoyed is Dillinger's fateful trip to the theater where he catches a movie starring Clark Gable. In a strange footnote to my own theater experience, I found that very Gable movie sitting in my mailbox when I got home, although I do not recall ever renting the DVD. This coincidence sums up the impact Public Enemies had on me. It represents the kind of real-life spark that Mann's movie regrettably lacks.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.