Public Enemies 3

First, in the way of a confession, let me freely admit (to those that don't already know) that when I was a kid, I was a Dillinger "fan". Other kids worshipped sports heroes; my "heroes" were guys like Dillinger, Jack "Legs" Diamond, and "Crazy Joe" Gallo. I've matured a bit since then-- I no longer regard these guys as "heroes" (it belatedly hit me in my mid-teens that killers were never "heroes") but they remain fascinating figures from American history. I went into this film recognizing that it wasn't going to be a documentary, but this is a heavily fictionalized version of Dillinger's criminal career. In the interests of being concise, I'll try to itemize what I liked about the film, and what I didn't like. Good points? Johnny Depp. I think he captured Dillinger better than anyone else I've ever seen portray him on screen. It may not have been as brilliant a performance as Anthony Hopkins portraying Nixon, or Bruno Ganz portraying Hitler, but it was the centerpiece of the film, and without him, the film would have been a total failure. Depp has the look down pat, the aura, and he embodies Dillinger's likeability, his easygoing charm, his almost suicidal bravado and recklessness, and his occasional ice-cold brutality. I liked that director Michael Mann, who has directed films I've appreciated in the past, captured the spirit and the look of Depression-era cities like Chicago. I appreciated that he portrayed J. Edgar Hoover and numerous FBI agents as something less than paragons of virtue; in many instances, then and now, they were (and are) unprincipled, ruthless bastards, and often incompetent to boot (witness the Melvin Purvis...played in this movie by Christian Bale...directed attack on Little Bohemia Lodge in Wisconsin, in which innocent civilians were killed, and the Dillinger Gang escaped). The connection between bank-robbers, organized crime figures, and corrupt law enforcement officials is shown. Unfortunately, my dislikes outweigh any positive attributes the film had for me. For instance, the members of the Dillinger Gang were interchangeable in this film. I couldn't tell one from another until fairly late into the picture, and they were all, in their own way, fascinating personalities (In the 1973 John Milius film, Baby Face Nelson was played by Richard Dreyfuss as a petulant, homicidal wimp; in this film, he's played as a homicidal Leo Gorcey). I also didn't appreciate the style of directing (I would expect something better from someone of Mann's experience and accomplishments) that was used in the numerous gunfights. It's a style taken directly from the MTV School of Directing: Bring the camera in close to someone's face to the point of distortion and rattle it around as the bullets fly, which I guess is supposed to replicate the chaos of armed combat. Unfortunately, I seldom knew which character the camera was supposed to be showcasing...criminal or cop?...and this technique only left me confused and bilious. On a smaller note, several Billie Holiday songs were used on the soundtrack. While I'm a Holiday fan, I found this annoying, and think the songs were used because it's considered "hip" now to play Billie Holiday, not because Dillinger listened to such songs; he was more inclined to listen to contemporary songs such as "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?", I think. As a final note, and at the risk of a "spoiler alert" (for those who don't know that Dillinger was shot outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre, which is still in operation and was playing "Mutant Ninja Turtles" when I was there), I thought the suggestion that Dillinger...shot through the back of the head, the bullet exiting underneath his eye...was able to whisper a message to one of the men who shot him, a message meant to be brought back to his beloved Billie Frechette, was absurd to the point of laughability. And that's another thing...I know romance is big in movies, whether "Public Enemies" or Francis Ford Coppola's version of "Dracula", but it really needs to be kept in perspective. That Dillinger and Frechette had an intense, passionate relationship is beyond dispute, but when Frechette was arrested, Dillinger didn't waste a whole lot of time before he hooked up with another woman. Not that he didn't maybe love Frechette in his own way, but after being shot through the head in front of the Biograph, I think he was too busy dying to worry about any "last words"...particularly romantic ones. "Public Enemies" isn't quite mediocre, but it could have been so much more.