Public Enemies

Release Date (UK) - 1 July 2009

Certificate (UK) - 15

Country - USA

Director - Michael Mann

Runtime - 140 mins

Starring - Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard

The tale of John Dillinger has been told many times before on screen and Michael Mann has assembled a cracking cast to retell this story with Johnny Depp as Dillinger and Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, the cop enlisted to hunt down 'Public Enemies' such as Dillinger in the crime ridden great depression.

I was really looking forward to a great film and I'm afraid this is a total disappointment. The direction completely lets the film down, tension isn't built up in the right places, and Mann just doesn't seem to have been able to draw any real emotions from any of the actors. Theres no excitement in what could have been a classic film with a star cast - it just fails miserably to draw you in to the plot. Cinematically its as if Mann wasn't sure to make a glossy Hollywood epic or something more personal and uncharacteristic as he flicks between carefully composed shots and handheld franticism.

The film begins with a prison breakout and then we follow Dillinger on a string of bank robberies whilst also following Purvis's pursuit of him. Dillinger's background and motivations are left unexplained and rather than add mystery or intrigue its just leaves the audience unsure whose side they should be on. He comes across as a Robin Hood character and seems to want to maintain a positive public attitude to him - not getting involved in kidnapping as he doesn't think the public would like him so much if he did but then doesn't seem to fell guilty plugging away with a machine gun at anything that moves in later robbery scenes. The relationship between him and girlfriend Billie (Marion Cotillard) doesn't quite ring true enough apart from perhaps in the last scene of the film and Dillinger's relationships with the various other criminals are not given enough if any context.

Bale plays Purvis the only way he seems to know how to, like a statue and although this at first seems to work as a man who cares for nothing but pursuit of Dillinger the lack of emotional involvement means that we care neither for him nor for Dillinger and are unsure whether we want Dillinger to be caught or not. Because of this the lengthy gun battles and shoot outs feel over-drawn and the film begins to drag.

It just doesn't work as a Gangster film and ends up coming off more as a costume drama, perhaps Mann spent too much time concentrating on the authenticity of the costumes, guns and props and forgot about story and character development completely. Not really worth a trip to the cinema unless all you want is to see some gun battles.