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Michael Mann has been known as the master of urban crime thrillers for some years now, but Public Enemies is the first time he's taken his unique talents and applied them to a 1930s setting. The film is about infamous Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) and his pursuit by dogged cop Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), a description which on the surface suggests a film very akin to a period Heat. However, one of the distinguishing features of Mann's seminal 1995 epic was the dual focus on both sides of the law, with Pacino and De Niro both receiving a fairly equal share of the narrative, whereas conversely Public Enemies is undoubtedly Depp's film. There are frequent visits to track the FBI's progress with their case, but Depp is the heart and soul of the film, in whose company the audience spends most of the running time. It's a strong performance and a commendably low-key one. Depp keeps his emotions internal but in the skilled hands of the actor he comes across as reserved rather than aloof. On the other hand, Bale, in his more limited screen time, is rather one-note; his standard "grimly determined" expression gets much use.
Mann is also almost unparalleled when it comes to staging shootouts. Other directors may be able to construct similarly spectacular scenes of bullets flying, but few make them seem as real as Mann does, which greatly increases their impact. Public Enemies certainly has no shortage of gunplay, though one sequence in particular at around the two-thirds mark stands out from the rest: the feds track Dillinger's posse to an isolated cabin in the woods, and all hell breaks loose. The siege of the building segues into a tense woodland chase before becoming an automotive pursuit. Mann never flinches from showing the impact of the bullets; a 1967 viewer who thought Bonnie and Clyde was obscenely brutal would probably have a coronary watching this. Yet the violence never feels exploitative; rather, it simply comes across as truthful to what actually happened, which in a film that clearly prides authenticity so highly is an important attribute.
Many of the problems with the film stem from one aspect: the visuals. Mann has controversially used the Viper digital camera again here, which may have suited the contemporary, immediate aesthetic he was seeking in Collateral and Miami Vice but in a period setting is constantly jarring. Certainly shooting in digital has its advantages, such as focal depth and the ability to cope with very low-light situations, but the film looks pallid and dull throughout, with a flatness to the image that makes it look cheap (which it certainly wasn't) and skin tones take on a sickly hue that does the actors no favours. It's particularly frustrating that other recent films have been shot with digital cameras to breathtaking results - Soderbergh's Che comes to mind - so technical limitations of the format no longer seem to be an issue. The sheen of artificiality acts as a continual barrier to engagement.
It doesn't help either that the pacing is extremely erratic. With the exception of that aforementioned centrepiece action sequence, the narrative never convincingly builds a head of steam. Pinpointing the exact cause of the problem is difficult, because there are numerous scenes that work individually exceptionally well, but they never coalesce to form a coherent whole. Despite a running time that slightly overstays its welcome, there's the sensation that a fairly substantial amount of material has been excised, as there are many characters but few are introduced properly or given any moments of personality (most of Dillinger's ever-changing followers are impossible to distinguish). Mann attempts to craft an emotional connection with Marion Cotillard's love interest, but like all of the side characters, her part is underwritten, meaning that the film remains cold and clinical throughout. It is therefore infuriatingly inconsistent, which makes what could have been a truly involving, gripping saga into simply an occasionally visceral and generally interesting one.
The summary
Public Enemies never quite finds its pacing and looks unforgivably bland, but does engross in fits and starts. It helps that Mann's flair for action certainly hasn't deserted him.
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