Public Enemies

Its 1933, John Dillinger is bought to a state prisoner by a cop who is actually his partner John Hamiltion to help him free some members of his gang. Like most bad men, Dillinger lives by principles strong enough to kill one his own men who cause a shootout that results in the death of his mentor.

Tired with Dillinger FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover entrusts Melvin Purvis, one of their finest to nab America’s public enemy # 1. After a failed first attempt to nab Dillinger, Purvis convinces Hoover to bring in more muscle power in the form of some old fashioned lawmen from Texas. A few false starts later Purvis nabs Dillinger but the flashy robber escapes from the Indiana prison where he was to be tried. Dillinger tries to get back with Billie Frenchette, the simple girl who loves him in spite of the reality, but FBI’s constant surveillance keeps the lovers apart. The mob too, which helped him previously, refuses to be party as Dillinger’s wayward ways attracts too much heat.

Dillinger puts together a gang but the score hardly gets them anything instead Purvis nabs one of the members who spills the beans on his whereabouts. All alone and wounded Dillinger eludes Purvis and finally meets Billie. He plans that one last job which would set him up for life but before the job can go down the cops nab Billie. The police interrogate Billie but she never gives up on Dillinger. Going for the kill Purvis forces Anna Sage, a madam, to help nab Dillinger who is hiding in her house. A few hours later Dillinger walks into a movie hall with Sage and another acquaintance. He gets out only to be greeted by FBI agents, one of whose bullets finally finds him.

From the face of it Public Enemies isn’t anything new and tries to work on the same level as Brain De Palma’s Untouchables but lacks its operatic melodrama. Bad men are always loved by the films but Dillinger isn’t Clyde or Butch Cassidy or any nameless gunslinger from some Western. The problem with the film is that even though it’s a true account of real people it is boringly straight. The cardboard cutouts in the name characters never engross beyond the basic and Michael Mann approaches them rather simplistically. He is also let down by the substandard writing that is replete with cheesy lines such as Purvis challenging Dillinger, ‘The only way you're walking out of this jail cell is when we take you out to execute you’ and Dillinger’s retort, ‘Well, we'll see about that.’

Presenting any old wine in a new bottle is one thing but Michael Mann’s Public Enemies is nothing more than a sorry relocation of his previous film, Heat. John Dillinger is Depression era’s Neil McCauley and even mouths the same lines as he leaves some customer’s money for he’s there to rob the bank’s money. The set piece which made Heat stand out some 14 years ago like the getaway after robbing the banks creeps its way into Public Enemies on more than one occasion. Even the cutting pattern of the scene where Billie’s nabbed by FBI agents and John Dillinger helplessly looks on reminds you of Ashley Judd saving Val Kilmer in Heat.

Many times performances by seasoned actors can attach some semblance of purpose to many things stupid. I remember how Heat was sold to us in 1995- Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Together. Imagine the wow factor. What we got instead was a one four minute scene featuring them together and everyone cried hoarse. A few years’ later people discovered the genius of the screenplay and the set pieces that made Heat a cult classic. It remains one of my favorite films but on some levels it’s the actors who made it possible. Both the leads Johnny Depp and Christian Bale fail in Public Enemies. To be fair to Bale he has always been a one expression actor and that works for him at times but that’s not the case with Depp. He has a huge persona attached to him since the Pirates of the Caribbean series and that is what mars things here. He seems to be unconvinced with the character and everything that he does looks easy. The scene where he charms Billie for dance is just regular tough peppered with some wisecracks. His Dillinger is very rushed and for the most part of it Depp sleepwalks. As for Christian Bale, well anyone could have done that role. Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover is good but the real steal of a deal is Marion Cotillard as Billie Frenchette. The woman is so good that her presence makes us believe that everyone else was probably real but we caught them on their day off.

Perhaps the biggest letdown of the film was the High Definition digital cinematography of the film. This isn’t the first time Mann has gone digital but I fail to comprehend what made him choose the format. Collateral was about one crazy night in the city of lights and maybe that’s why the Thomson VIPER camera complimented the storytelling. Miami Vice was about the war on drugs fought on high waves in Latin America, bars and exotic getaways in between sipping mojitos so the SONY HDW F900 worked as a charm. But Public Enemies is different film. This is a film that is set in the era of gangsters, molls, FBI agents in fine suits, hats, Tommy guns, smoke filled restaurants, cinema halls that played newsreels, trains bellowing steam and the incandescent light bulbs- how can you think of flat digital look? The detailing of the CineAlta might be great but Dante Spinotti’s handheld jerky tight close-ups’ digital look is a failure. High Def kills the film so much that the scenes where Dillinger is being pursued in the woods looks like unused footage from The Blair Witch Project.

There is a raging debate about film being on its way out and high def digital being the future and I’m all game for it but I think each story demands the medium it should be told in. Since Collateral Michael Mann seems to be hell bent on going digital but would the same Michael Mann shoot Last of the Mohicans on digital if he were to shoot it today? Blessed with some great production design, the film could have benefited from some classic camerawork considering the story wasn’t that great. Digital surely adds a sense of realism to the proceedings but this is story set in the 1930’s so how about some real realism? Or are we so used to the images that any deviation and we cry foul…?

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