Public Enemies

After hearing the bout of mixed praise concerning Public Enemies, I soon became very anxious to see it myself. The results of this experiment seem incredibly one sided, and may behave as thus.
Public Enemies was an outstanding piece of work, helmed by the incredible master of action, Michael Mann. The camera style is really something you need to work yourself into, but once you jump into the story, it grabs you, shoots you in the face, and refuses to let you go.

The pacing was very brisk, and hardly left any wiggle room for people to look at their watches and begin to get bored. It literally kept me engaged for the entire two hour and twenty minute running time. If I recall, I only thought about the money in my bank account once, and that is impressive given that the movie is about a man who robs banks.

Depp gives a very dangerous, suave (and dare I say, pimp) performance as John Dillinger, and several scenes where he blends into the crowd left me chilled as I sat in the theater. He could have disposed of his Johnny Depp "crazy eyes" and lip twitches for this character as they were quite unneeded, but they happen so rarely that it was hardly noticed.

Now, it's not that Christian Bale did a bad job, as I have read several reviews that suggest just that. He did a good job playing a hard nosed cop with just Dillinger on his mind. This was what the script called for. I'm not saying it was a bad script, (in fact it was a very, very well done screenplay) but Bale responded honestly to the circumstance he was given as the character, which I believe is the definition of acting. He didn't push, or pull anything out of this guy and made him believable, and in that way he did his job. If you wanted him to do the "I'm being traumatized by the terrible things I'm seeing" eyes, then maybe Johnny should have played both roles.

Speaking of the performances, all around they were just fantastic. I have no idea hat Michael Mann may have said to them during filming, but this movie just reeked of the 1930's, and I had no trouble placing myself in that time period and going along for the ride. Even the bit characters were fully fleshed out, which says alot for both the actors playing those characters, and Michael Mann.

The music was incredibly well fitting and helped absorb people into the movies atmosphere, but it was the sound design that will turn heads at this year's Oscars. The sound design helped sell the reality of the movie to my mind, and I soon found myself on the edge of my seat, propelled by what was happening on the screen. From bullet raging action sequences to breathtaking silence in the forest, it was the sound design that wrapped all the tension in the movie into one big tasty burrito.

With the exception of the jarring first minutes and a few bumps towards the end, the film was shot gorgeously, and left me with very few complaints.

Public Enemies was an outstanding piece of art that was masked with all the action and intrigue of the normal summer popcorn flick.

A-

If you enjoyed Collateral, The Dark Knight, or The Untouchables, you will enjoy this film.