No high-tech CGI is needed to make this summer movie a blockbuster
John Dillinger was deemed America’s first Public Enemy No. 1. In “Public Enemies,” Johnny Depp revives the legendary criminal with both control and charisma in the No. 1 studio drama of 2009 so far.
But the star of this show is director-producer-writer Michael Mann (“Heat”). Combining intricate storytelling, historical interest, visual mastery and heartrending romance into good old-fashioned entertainment, Mann establishes himself again as the thinking person’s action impresario.
He penned the script with Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, based on “Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34” by Bryan Burrough, That book examines a scandalous period, which included notorious Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and their nemesis — megalomaniacal FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover (played by Billy Crudup).
While today’s picture shows some of them briefly, it focuses on Dillinger and his two primary relationships: the deep, but doomed, love affair he had with mixed-race coat-check girl Billie Frechette (a sultry Marion Cotillard) and the contest of wills he faced against the agent hunting him around the country.
Christian Bale plays the Bureau’s Melvin Purvis, a savvy enforcer determined to get his man but uncomfortable with the dirty tactics that Hoover advocates. It’s a cat-and-mouse game between the earnest, well-intended Pervis and the cool, loyal bank robber. Each has his code of right and wrong. But neither is reluctant to kill. Neither side of the law holds a monopoly on morality.
John Dillinger is best known for his death, shot down on a Chicago night as he left a movie at the Biograph Theater. So the plot lies less in what will happen and more in how he meets his fate. Mann compensates for a lack of narrative suspense with ripping, realistic action sequences. Boosted by the beautiful imagery and meticulous period motifs of cinematography Dante Spinotti and production designer Nathan Crowley, these low-tech scenes prove blasting Tommy guns and racing Model Ts can hold more thrills than all that CGI sci-fi fantasy on which Hollywood now depends.
Along with an ear for memorable dialogue, Mann’s eye for casting further elevates the production. Using faces both new and familiar, down to the smallest part, he populates the story of a fascinating Depression-era anti-hero with precision including standouts Lili Taylor, Stephen Lang and Jason Clarke.
They help make “Public Enemies” an artistic, absorbing achievement.
