Being a macho man is fun. Just ask Michael Mann. This is the guy who made Miami Vice (as TV series and movie), Thief, Last of the Mohicans, Heat, Ali, Collateral and now Public Enemies, which is a remake of Heat
in everything but name. For Mike, life's about men doing man stuff (ie
hunting down crims and having amazing shootouts in urban settings) and
grimly waiting for the inevitable consequences (a, like, rilly cool
death).
Hey, the guy's entitled to his worldview, and to be
fair it's exactly the same worldview as Sam Peckinpah, who's thought of
as a great director (well, a great dead director, but being dead is
cool, remember). And he's only putting on film what goes through many
men's heads anyway. It's just we're a bit embarrassed to admit it.
Public Enemies
extracts the John Dillinger story from Bryan Burroughs' epic
non-fiction book of the same name, starting with the legendary bank
robber being sprung from jail in 1933 in an action sequence that gets
things started in a verrrry similar way to Heat's opening security van raid.
What
follows is a straightforward chronicle of the Dillinger gang's
robberies, arrests, escapes and cat-and-mouse games with the newborn
FBI (Christian Bale in a - whodaguessed it? - intense performance as
agent Melvin Purvis, Billy Crudup creepy as agency mastermind J Edgar
Hoover).
There's also a bit of romance thrown in, just in case
any women have accidentally strayed into the auditorium (French actress
Marion Cotillard makes a pretty good fist of the Midwestern accent as
Dillinger paramour Billie Frechette, who is wooed by the old tommy-gun
wielder, then plunged head first into his violent world).
But
mainly it's rob/flee/get arrested/bust out/rinse/repeat. It's a simple
canvas that allows Mann to let off maximum steam; you can tell that if
someone gave him the chance to travel back and be one of these
badasses, he'd slamdunk his family, BAFTA gong and pension arrangements
in a bin if he thought it would get him to the time machine any quicker.
Production values are quite lavish and bring to mind The Untouchables,
but weirdly the movie's shot on digital, which totally squanders the
cosumes, in particular. Film adds depth to costume and sets, here the
digital makes everything look like Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's
a horrible mistake, and I hope Mann did it out of last-ditch financial
necessity rather than some misguided idea that it would be, like,
groundbreaking (the version I saw was admittedly "unfinished" but I
can't see it changing much).
Johnny
Depp oozes A-list, even if his role is under-written and one
dimensional. Mann is obviously quite pleased to have Depp along for the
ride and gives him a guzillion close-ups. Bale is all husky intensity,
as in Terminator Salvation, and a lot more fun is to be had with up-and-coming Brit star Stephen Graham as the psychotic Baby Face Nelson.
The best bits of the film are Depp's second escape from jail -
featuring an excruciating wait at some traffic lights while soldiers
mill about in the street - and the climax, a drawn-out affair as the
Feds anticipate Depp's emergence from a Clark Gable film to take him
down (I think you mean "arrest him" - ed).
There aren't really any surprises in Public Enemies,
and as such only scores a Raildog 6.8 out of 10. But in terms of male
escapism, you get to be John Dillinger for two hours 140 minutes (and
that brief period of history, 1933-36, in which Dillinger, Bonnie and
Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, the Barker-Karpis Gang and Machine Gun Kelly,
flourished was a truly amazing time, deserving of at least one big Hollywood picture like this) and on that scale it's a healthy 9.
Oh, and for the record, here's your cutout guide to the similarities between Heat and Public Enemies:
1) Public Enemies' jailbreak v similar to van raid in Heat. Both feature a nasty death and a smattering of four-wheel mayhem.
2)
Cop hunts bank robber. Both have their own cool gang. Crooks'
high-rolling lifestyle revealed in club/restaurant scene near
beginning, as is lead crook's single status.
3) Loud gunfight in street following bank robbery. Echoey gunfight effects that only ever appear in, er, Heat and Public Enemies.
4)
Bit where one crook or cop dies during post-robbery shootout and
someone comes and inspects their bloody body amid the mayhem.
5)
Scene where crook drives in darkened street up to lady partner's house,
with cops lying in wait. Cops fail to "take him down" (ie arrest him).
6) Touchy feely, sensuous "the passing of life" music by Eliot Goldenthal.
7) Bit near end where main crook and his woman sit in long grass and mutter about the future.
8)
Long, tense build-up to a big action scene, with lots of walking
involved (the cops following Dillinger from the cinema vs the cops
approaching the bank in Heat).
Thankfully there's no "coffee shop scene" in Public Enemies but you know that if MM thought he could have got away with it...
