REVIEW: Public Enemies

I have a bone to pick with director Michael Mann. Well maybe not a bone so much as a real conundrum. I love Michael Mann movies. Thief, Manhunter, and Heat are true classics in crime cinema history. Classics. And for me maybe that was too much to love up to. I have three topics I would like to cover here. 1. The movie itself 2. Mann and HD 3. Remake?

1. The Movie

Public Enemies is a movie of note because it stars Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. So people will go see it regardless. The story of bank robber John Dillinger most people know, so there is not a lot of suspense. The suspense comes in the action scenes in PE. Which are well done and shot quite well. They do not feel overly staged. The dramatic scenes however are flat as a board. You do not buy the love story between Depp and his sop called blackbird. They have no chemistry nor is there any offered. It just happens. OK. Christian Bale's character has an interesting mission to capture John Dillinger. But you learn absolutely zero about his life or interest in capturing Dillinger. Nada. He is getting slammed by some critics for providing a blank performance, which is BS because there is nothing given to us to even give a rats ass about him. He like the romance of Depp and Blackbird chick just is. Take it or leave it. So in a nutshell, great action scenes with little to no music, just guns and bullet hit sounds. That is great. The film is not really boring, but when you don't care about the characters there is no real interest in who lives or dies. The one saving grace of this film is actor Stephen Lang. One of my favorite character actors dating back to Mann's epic masterpiece NBC show, Crime Story, Lang gives a chilling performance as one of Bale's men tracking Depp down.



2. Mann and HD

For those who could care less about movie technology should leave now! WHAT IN THE WORLD IS MANN THINKING WITH HIS HD??? The movie has great scenes of epic beauty, then all of a sudden we are treated to a shot that looks like I shot it on my home video camera. It's very jarring. Public Enemies joins his own Collateral and the near incomprehensible feature film version of Miami Vice in the "bad HD" feature film list. And the fact that there are virtually tons of other HD movies among us that we never notice as being film or not is a bad deal for Mann. I think it boils down to Mann's insistence that night scenes be shot in really low light, which if you know much about filming in low light in HD, its a no no. I know with this and mostly Vice he is trying to push the edge of HD tech, but dude it's really noticeable and very distracting. Enough of that. The other thing that is not working for me is the use of shaky cam here. Mann used to be the master of the wide screen composition, and for a while now he has been the master of bad shaky cam while trying to sneak in his signature master shots. His style is now all over the map. Another distraction. Click HERE to read an article about the HD cam used on this film.


3. Remake?
If you know or love the Mann film, Heat. Look between the lines....think really hard. This is a remake of Heat to me. And Heat was in fact a remake of Mann's own TV Show, LA Takedown. So in essence he has now remade his own film twice now. This movie is like dating a hot model with little going on upstairs. And to quote Pacino in Heat. "Great Ass!"

This is a fun movie if you love historical crime cinema, and Depp does give a good performance as does everyone else, they just don't have much meat to chew on. Someone please give Mann a great crime script to make!!!!