Unsightly ‘Public Enemies’ indulges myth

By Zack McGhee | Saturday, July 4, 2009, 11:39 AM

Shot on high-definition video, seeing Public Enemies on the big screen is like watching a bootleg copy of Titanic through a dirty windshield. Michael Mann’s new movie reportedly cost $80 million dollars to make. Imagine spending that much money on a movie — constructing sets, designing costumes, hiring world-famous actors like Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Billy Crudup, and Oscar-winning beauty Marion Cotillard — and recording it with your dad’s old camcorder. The fast-motion videography gives it all the immediacy of a Civil War reenactment. It feels more like a dress rehearsal than an actual movie. (Think I’m exaggerating? Seriously, go see it.)

On top of the crummy aesthetic qualities, Public Enemies romanticizes John Dillinger as the criminal equivalent of an honest entrepreneur, made increasingly irrelevant by corporate-style organized crime. That he robbed banks and murdered several policeman while making a mockery of the justice system is moot according to Mann, because the system’s incompetence invited it. Yet Mann is only interested in a cursory examination of what the FBI’s rapid evolution would do for restoring order and confidence after an especially turbulent time in the nation’s still-brief history.

Public Enemies indulges the myth of Dillinger as a modern-day Robin Hood. “We’re not here for your money,” Dillinger says as one of the bank’s patrons empties his pockets, his wallet already on the counter. “We’re here for the bank’s money.” (Well, gee, I thought, that’s his money, too.) Mann and his co-screenwriters seem to mourn Dillinger’s alienation and inevitable fall, only briefly stopping to underline his macabre idolization by the press, and making light of his all-around celebrity. (That subject is only seriously examined in one key scene, which suggests a far more interesting vision of Public Enemies that is otherwise absent.) The penultimate scene, which takes place in a movie theater, lovingly eulogizes Dillinger while indulging his glowing self image.

There’s also a pair of anachronistic clunkers in the dialogue department. I nearly laughed out loud, for example, when — after just making their getaway from a heist — one character asks another how far it is to their hideout, and he quickly responds that it’s “3.2 miles.” (How expensive GPS navigation must have been in those days.) But when asked how much a potential score is, one of my moviegoing companions pointed out, the answer is always articulated not as between (if memory serves) $1.4 million and $1.7 million, but as “between one million four-hundred thousand and one million seven-hundred thousand.”

And yet, I must admin I kinda liked it. As entertainment alone, in spite of all the muck and the nearly intolerable video, Public Enemies is solid genre work, captivating and suspenseful. Johnny Depp does not play Dillinger as a villain, but since it seems he is not supposed to, he is convincing — attractive and persuasive. His chemistry with Marion Cotillard is undeniable. Her Billie Frechette is believably intrigued by Depp’s charismatic outlaw, and their love story is accelerated but authentic. As Melvin Purvis, the man on the hunt for Dillinger, Christian Bale is predictably one note. (Why did I ever think this guy could act?) It’s nice to see Lili Taylor, Leelee Sobieski, Stephen Dorff and others in supporting roles, but Public Enemies’ true star is the incredible, dynamic, and tragically underused Billy Crudup, who absolutely steals the show as J. Edgar Hoover.

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