After a year’s worth of anticipation, Michael Mann’s Public Enemies – the story of John Dillinger and special agent Melvin Purvis – fell sadly short. What it fell short of, I’m not really sure, and that’s the problem with this movie. It tells the story of Dillinger and Purvis with historical accuracy, no doubt, but when the credits rolled I was left completely baffled over what the hell the movie was about. Not to say it was confusing, it just touched on a lot of themes, but only gently and with no emotion. The ensemble cast is easily one of the greatest in recent memory, but thematically this two and a half hour HD jerkoff is a disaster. Godammit, Mann.

Full review/essay/rant and more pictures of handsome devil Johnny Depp after the jump…

Okay you muggs, time for some criminology. First, let me just state that back in my days of academia I was a history major and my (unofficial) concentration was CRIME. American crime and its relationship with society, to be pretentious exact. Tommy guns, ’30s Fords, and fitted fedoras give me all kinds of boners, I can’t help it. So if I go on a tangent or three, forgive me. Hey, a movie review and history lesson on a streetwear blog, go figure!

The 1920s and 30s were the golden age of bank jobs. This was before the days of marked money, silent alarms, and surveillance cameras, and just before the days of two-way communication. Literally, crooks just strolled in and stuck-em-up. The miserable circumstances of the Great Depression also helped to make outlaws into celebrated, pseudo-rock stars, especially the class of crook known as the “gentleman” bank robber. This included cats like Willie Sutton of Brooklyn, Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd (played by Channing Tatum in the movie for about 10 seconds), and John Dillinger (Johnny Depp). The financially-fucked public, who didn’t have any money to put into banks to begin with, idolized criminals who had the cajones to hold up banks – especially in the mid-west where places to lay low were a-plenty. Out of the entire line-up, Dillinger was the most celebrated, charming, and violent. The movie bills Dillinger as some kind of clever mastermind, but he doesn’t do one self-preserving or clever thing in the entire movie. He just spits a bunch of sexy one-liners in between dinner and heists.

Also during this time, J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup – almost unrecognizable in this movie) was trying to convince Congress to allow the U.S. Bureau of Investigation to become a national police force, nullifying most interstate laws that allowed criminals to escape custody rather easily. In order to justify the funding needed for this, Hoover had to basically bust some lawless heads and get results by any means neccessary (see: beating women with phone books). Since Dillinger was the most lauded, Hoover created a Dillinger Task Force based out of Chicago. This special force was headed by Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), an infamously a cold motherfrucker who shot and killed Pretty Boy Floyd in 1934 after Floyd was already wounded and lying on the ground. In the movie though, he’s kind of a softie. (Below is a picture of cheeky Melvin Purvis) Purvis later took his own life in 1960 after becoming seriously ill.

Oh, so yeah Public Enemies. Like I said, the cast is downright flawless. Depp and Bale deliver (gasp!), but the supporting cast shines as well. Most notable is Stephen Graham (Snatch, This is England) as sociopath Baby Face Nelson. In the short amount of time he’s on screen, Graham is a force of nature and downright scary. Nelson was one of the most bloodthirsty hoods of this time period and hated cops and feds so much that he kept with him a list their license plates which he compiled so he could hunt and kill them at his convenience. Giovanni Ribisi (Virgin Suicides, Boiler Room) stands out during his short screen time as creepo mastermind Alvin Karpis. Dillinger’s “muse,” Billie Frechette (played by adorable Oscar winner Marion Cotillard [below]) is great but gets overplayed in the movie. On the really real, Dillinger enjoyed the company of whores. According to the movie, Dillinger’s pursuers finally caught him by beating the shit out of Frechette.

Like he did with Collateral, Mann shot much of Public Enemies using HD cameras, which allows some really pretty gunfights. Anyone whose seen Heat knows that Mann knows how to direct an action sequence. The spectacular gunfight in Heat is legendary  – and was eerily mirrored in the tragic 1997 North Hollywood Shootout. But sadly every throwdown in Public Enemies is an incoherent mess. There are a few shootouts in this movie in which I literally had no clue who got killed. Also, Mann likes to shoot two inches from everyone’s face, which tends to get annoying. It’s like there were a few medium shots and then all XXXtreme close-ups.

Ultimately, there’s just no theme or emotion. The movie briefly addresses the national shift from old-fashioned robberies to organized crime where the law is broken in secret. These moments feature Frank Nitti (Bill Camp), Al Capone’s numero uno in Chicago, but you wouldn’t know this because they don’t explain fully who the fuck he is at any point. The movie also thinks it’s a love story, a character study, and an action movie, but it doesn’t pull any of these motifs off. In the end, the audience is going to care more about Johnny Depp getting shot than John Dillinger.

FYI: Dillinger’s cock is not on display in the Smithsonian.

- Oh Mars