Well it's been a week since I saw "Public Enemies", and it has almost completely faded from my memory, like a bad nightmare. Unfortunately, it hasn't faded enough to make a nice venting review unnecessary, so here we go.Michael Mann, who directed the awesome opus "Heat" in 1995, and the fantastic "The Insider" as a folow up, has been going downhill for a while now. And if it hadn't been for the utterly shithouse "Miami Vice" in 2006, I would say he'd hit rock bottom with "Public Enemies".
Sure, it slightly beats having Jamie Foxx standing around in the background of every shot, wearing sunglasses and trying to act cool, but unfortunately this flick fails on almost every level.
Acting
It had potential. Johnnie Depp is usually awesome in everything he does. In fact, he's truthfully not bad at all here, either. It's just that he's playing a character that's completely uninteresting, shot by a digital-camera-addicted has-been with roughly the vision and enthusiasm of a sack of odourless turds.
And of course, the ever-reliable Christian Bale is usually... ever-reliable. Not here, and in fact his character is so banal that I'd forgotten he was in the movie until I really thought about it for this review.
Story
Mann seems to have been so distracted with getting the details of the period correct, he forgot he was making a movie. Although, judging by the "goofs" list on IMDB, he didn't even do that properly!
Considering he got so many historical facts wrong, I don't see why he couldn't have altered John Dillinger's life to be more eventful. All he really does in this movie is wander around, pull a few jobs, virtually kidnap a woman for his girlfriend, and then get shot. Yes he gets shot at the end, and I don't even feel bad about spoiling it, because there is only one way a movie like this can end.
Honestly, the only real entertainment value of this movie is the shooting itself. It is captured vividly, with the unexpected addition of a special effect that lovingly renders the bullet going through the back of Dillinger's head and through his cheek. After being with this annoying, unlikeable and worst of all boring character for so long, it is quite pleasurable and satisfying to see his face explode in a spray of red.
Cinematography
My biggest beef? The goddamned digital cameras. It makes everything look unprofessional and cheap. And yes, Michael Mann, we CAN notice the difference. All your reasons for using digital cameras, like them being lightweight, easy to edit, more cost effective than film - NONE of those things have anything to do with good film-making! Lose the digital until you can work out how to make it look as good as film. Your movies cost the same to watch as all the others, so stop being a lazy cheapskate and spend some money on celluloid!
And if you must, just pick one or the other. Don't keep switching from one to the other. If you pick digital, pick a style and a topic that suits the medium. Don't try to make a glossy biopic with consumer-grade digital cams.
The verdict
Boring boring boring!
2 stars - one for Depp and one for Bale... NONE for Mann until he pulls his head out of his ass.
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