Public Enemies

Slick public discourse

By CARA BAYLES

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The gangster film bloomed during the Great Depression, and its universe of hard-boiled characters, elegant low-key lighting and a plot that flipped the moral paradigm was a product of its age. During the 1930s, the perversion of the American Dream—in which down-and-outters made their own way by stealing from banks—appealed to viewers. Banks may not have taken a federal bankroll then, but they were foreclosing on the poor at an alarming rate and were considered a detested symbol of the crashing market. Sound familiar?

While it's not the tightest narrative, the script of Public Enemies is full of whip-smart dialogue and sharp parallels between notorious bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) and Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), the FBI agent hunting him. It opens with Dillinger breaking his compatriots out of jail, and punishing one of them for botching the job—outlaw justice. Then we watch Purvis shoot Pretty Boy Floyd, who says he'll burn in hell for killing him. Purvis enforces the letter of the law, but is willing to kill, sacrifice his men and torture to do so, whereas Dillinger breaks the law, but only takes money from banks (not civilians), loves a woman who lives next to the subway tracks and is a gentleman criminal who likes his robberies done artfully. Guess who you end up rooting for. 

Depp is cool, understated and gorgeous (natch), and Bale wears his dogged determination face to great effect. Marion Cotillard plays it fiery, igniting the romance between Billie Frechette and Dillinger despite limited screentime. Billy Crudup's J. Edgar Hoover possesses bureaucratic, cutthroat ambition, posing for the press cameras with greased-back hair, but that nasal '30s official voice is no match for Dillinger leaning on the district attorney and philosophizing in a casual drawl.

The film misses with its cinematography, which is a shame, since the sets and costumes are dazzling. Director Michael Mann loves HD, but shooting a period piece in digital is a bit mind-boggling (especially as the myth-making power of film is a central theme). Mann plays around with filters too much, so there is no unifying aesthetic. Some shots from Dillinger's extradition are just what they should be—a muted color palate with moody rain and smoke from camera flares—but other shots look like a green-screen challenge. Throughout, the camera is so unsteady, you get whiplash and can't soak up the composition.

The script is genius (and, to an extent, lucky) in reflecting current events. The similarity to the genre's origins of financial collapse is a spooky coincidence, since the script was in development before our own Great Recession. But the script makes overt gestures to our seven-year international quagmire, depicting the origins of the term "war on crime" (our first conflict with a concept), and the action is essentially guerilla warfare. Dillinger hides out in domestic spaces between robberies, driving Hoover to "create informants" using torture techniques and strong-arm tactics on Dillinger's friends. It dramaticizes a question the nation struggles with: How many of your own crimes must you commit before you turn into the enemy, and when is that no longer worth victory?

It doesn't answer the question, of course, but, like any classic gangster film, Public Enemies uses an American formula to talk about contemporary life.

Plus, it's fun to watch.

PUBLIC ENEMIES

RATED | R

OPENS | 7.1.09