Though obscured beneath layers of flabby man-drama and one too many moments rendered by machine-gun fire, there’s a great movie sitting at the heart of Public Enemies.
Endeavouring to tell the story of Depression Era bank robber and folk hero John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), this latest effort from director Michael Mann (Heat, The Insider) gets lost a tad early because it’s not just taking on the classic anti-hero arc, but an entire philosophy of fear-mongering and its political potency.
Based on Bryan Burrough’s book Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI 1933-34, Mann’s film cycles through three distinct narratives at once: the story of romantic rebel Dillinger, the rise of J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup), and the story of lawman Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale).
Each one of these manly plot prongs serves a specific thematic function. Dillinger represents the Robin Hood-styled romantic hero who champions the Everyman while victimizing the rich and arrogant.
Hoover emerges as the nefarious force that would prefer to see the Republic run as a police state, and Purvis is the real deal everyone is supposedly fighting for: An Everyman bound by duty and his profession to stop bad guys — but as the film progresses, not even he’s too sure which side of the law wins the moral right to call itself good.
Every piece of this narrative pie has endless potential for steamy drama and comes with a scoop of cool history, to boot, but it sits so long in the bowl, the shape of the plot line starts to melt.
Mann and his two co-writers Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman make sure most of the historical detail is correct, such as the facts surrounding Dillinger’s pursuit and eventual execution.
Where the creators really start to create is in the dramatic development of each character, and the invented details concerning the romance between Dillinger and his girlfriend Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), as well as the dynamic between Dillinger and lawman Purvis — characterized here as a tight-lipped, and sparkly-eyed, exchange of manly respect.
