After a jail break, we are located in a car escaping from the Indiana(I think it's indiana) state penitentary. Mr Depp has a problem facing him. Sitting next to him is a man who set off the alarm and caused a firefight at the front gate of the prison, resulting in the death of one of the other criminals running away. The Pirates of the Carribean Depp would forgive him, realising that all men deserve a second chance, and he'll probably save them all in the end. This Depp hits him twice in the face and throws him out of the car.
We obviously haven't seen this Depp onscreen before. While he's obviously been in touch with his dark side, those have mostly been in the gothic worlds of Tim Burton. Here he's much more introverted, he's always closed off to the audience. Here, he's not overacting.
This movie is a firestarter. In a summer that brought us Transformers 2 and GI Joe, this is a unique film that would stand out even among the arthouse months of sep/oct/etc. Long shots, close ups, all unconventional.
This was expected. But everyone seems to have reacted copmpletely different from each other on this movie. For every person who claims that the last third ruins the movie, there seems to be another person who believes it redeems the movie. Everybody's got a perspective on Public Enemies.
The main problem with Public Enemies is that it doesn't seem to be anything anybody wants it to be. It's not heat in the depression. Mann does not focus on the cat and mouse chase between Dillinger and Melvin Purvis(Christian Bale), but more the lives of each men at that time. Sometimes Mann uses Long, still shots that feel like they came out of Ran, but then he'll use shaky, digital close ups. The style is at odds with itself.
It's a shame, because the style is fantastic. Mann's choice to shoot on digital allows the movie to put you straight into this world of 1930's Chicago. However, the period doesn't mean a thing to Mann. He doesn't seem to care about the period, what's going around Dillinger and Purvis, but just about them. I think that's smart, as the material covered in the book Public Enemies is too broad for one movie, but this also leaves out a lot of fascinating material to work with, another reason people have reacted less kindly to Public Enemies.
One of the moments sticks out for me. Not the long shootout in the mountain retreat(although that is great) but it comes when Dillinger is caught again, if only for a short while. He has to be extradited to Indiana(I think it's Indiana). Mann then gives us one of the most suprisingly beautiful montages in cinema history, I think. The cinematography is at it's best, the shots are absolutely breathtaking.
Verdict: While nobody's going to leave Public Enemies hating it, it did seem a massive dissapointment. Me? Well, I liked it more then everyone else.
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