Public Enemies

John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) is America's Most Wanted criminal in the 1930's. A notorious bank robber, his notoriety soon becomes his undoing as crime syndicates begin to see him as a liability and J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) sends his best agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) in pursuit of Dillinger in a push to establish the FBI.

Enemies is an interesting movie- intense, dark, and racy in atmosphere. Dillinger's fling-turned-love with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) is impulsive and seems poorly developed except that it somehow manages to make its few scenes genuine. Dillinger's character is fascinating. He is portrayed as extremely loyal to friends and family, and he prioritizes public opinion directly after money and Billie. He also totes a gun all the time in the film, but rarely kills anyone, preferring to take hostages over murdering. Speaking of which, on a side note, there is a good one-minute or more spent on a massive gunfight and I've never heard Dolby SurroundSound that loudly. Bad choice on the volume-I was this close to covering my ears.

I'm a Christian Bale fan and he definitely delivered as hard-nosed agent Purvis, blurring the moral lines between the FBI and the criminals they hunt (particularly relevant to the last eight years, eh?). Depp's performance was excellent too- it's always nice to see him outside of his weird roles (such as that awful adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Cotillard was the warmest and most compelling of the bunch, however.

I had two main issues with the film. The first is more minor but nevertheless important: the score. It was inconsistent to the point of eye-rolling when instead of the lovely '30's jazz or folksy bad boy tunes we got sweeping orchestral scores for scenes that didn't really deserve it. Scenes involving Billie were especially susceptible.

The other flaw of the film is that it can't decide (or rather Michael Mann couldn't decide) if it's a hard, gritty take on a real-life infamous public figure, or a throwback to classic gangster movies with all the romanticism and bravado of idealized tragic crime. Still, it makes for an interesting dichotomy, and if you like history, particularly American crime history, and intense character-studies, this is a must-see.

-elln