Public Enemies
By: Amy Nicholson
Michael Mann’s Public Enemies isn’t a fable. It’s flat and direct, and when a line or two slips out that sounds like it wants to elevate Dillinger’s life into a grand theme, it’s quickly hammered down. But it’s not a biography either. All the facts are wrong, the parties different, the truths scrambled. Here, Dillinger (Johnny Depp) is the last of the great robbers. Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson—who actually both survived him—are gunned down early, and start the chain of events that leads to Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) heading the FBI quest to stop Dillinger at all costs. Meanwhile, Dillinger meets Indian reservation beauty Billie Frechette (Marion Cotilliard, her wavering French accent fobbed off as the side effect of a Francophone father), and the two instantly embark on one of those grand Hollywood romances that screenwriters deludedly deem fascinating, even though their uninspired, unwavering commitment is such stuff long naps are made of. (How much more interesting and brave would it be for screenwriters Mann, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman to admit that Dillinger dumped his lady during her two-year sentence for refusing to turn him in?)
Public Enemies is a handsome film, but as empty as a silk hat box. The film loves thick blacks and expensive jackets and taunting furs that make our fingers ache with envy. If only it were about something. The moment of Dillinger’s death is awful, but less for emotional reasons than the gasp of watching a slow motion bullet exit from the front of his face—a detail Mann did get right. It wouldn’t surprise me if the whole film was made for that scene. It’s not a moment for heroes. Dillinger is surprised, then dead. Purvis finally has his moment, and then it’s over in a flash as the gawkers flood the scene and his duties turn from heroism to crowd control.
In an epilogue, Mann tells us that Purvis committed suicide in 1960, as though that has anything to do with Dillinger’s story. But it feels like a cheap play for depth, especially when we never see a glimmer of doubt or guilt in Bale’s performance. His Purvis is Batman without the rasp: same Bale, different suit. Bale’s performances have gone increasingly inward ever since he was hailed as Hollywood’s Next Big Thing, but the guy who could once play everything from serial killers to singing newsboys hasn’t emoted in years. But I’m going to give Bale a little bit of a pass as Mann is capable of turning his leading men into well-dressed plywood. Hell, in Miami Vice, he made Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell boring. Even Depp here seems to fight for life. He’s got a few moments of off-the-cuff charm, but largely his Dillinger is passive in his own story. He can rob a bank, but outside of those two-minute stretches, he mostly looks watchful while riding in cars and lets other people tell him who he is. (The consensus is he doesn’t think past tomorrow and he can’t let other people down.)
In the minutes before his death, we watch Dillinger watching Clark Gable onscreen playing a crook in Manhattan Melodrama and Mann presses us to see these two doomed Hollywood gangsters as mirrors. But Gable—even from the distance of one camera filming another camera from seven decades away—is fully alive. And this film, fresh from the studios, is never better than comatose. (Amy Nicholson)
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