Dillinger closer to fact

After much anticipation, I finally caught Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger and Christian Bale as FBI agent Melvin Purvis. Trailers had presented it as a sort of cat-and-mouse period crime drama, so my mother and I armed ourselves with some action/crime-suspense chow: chips, popcorn, drink, and a small bag of M&M’s to share. All that food, and yet none of the expected action and drama.

This is just to say that Public Enemies isn’t what I expected. At first, I thought it was because it literally looked different from other period films set in the 1930s. Mann shot it on HD, so it was dark in some places and a little too shaky and grainy in others. “That prison’s too dark!” My mother exclaimed during one breakout scene. “That’s why it’s so easy for them to escape.”

I’m sure Mann knew what he was doing (he is, after all, one of the directors who’s been praised for revolutionizing the craft of movie-making with his story-telling style and his use of HD), but I probably would have been more accepting of this choice for modern settings (think Crank and Collateral). With this period piece, I was lost for quite a while. In fact, towards the end of the film, my mother summed it up for me: “Maybe it’s more like a documentary.”

Well, yes, but—take heart—one with Johnny Depp in it. With no make-up. Which is not to say he’s any less spectacular with thick eye-liner or thick, pale foundation on.

To get exactly how Public Enemies views like a documentary is to know a little bit of how the film came to be. It is based on the non-fiction book Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burroughs. The author did the research with an HBO miniseries in mind, attempted to write the script, abandoned the project, turned it into a book, resold movie rights to Michael Mann, and now we have this docu-drama. I’m going to be naughty and say it still has a bit of the spirit of its original intent.

Incidentally, Leonardo di Caprio was supposed to play Dillinger. He dropped out of the project and eventually worked on Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island. I say it would have been interesting, either way.

Mann has been praised for his sparse film-making. His story-telling is characteristically taut, his plot threadbare. He doesn’t go into back stories and subplots, and just focuses on the story’s forward movement. This is clear in Public Enemies, which goes right into the events of 1933, starting with the time Dillinger broke his pals out from the Indiana State Prison. A few scenes later, we are introduced to Melvin Purvis, who kills Pretty Boy Floyd in pursuit, and, is recruited by J. Edgar Hoover to catch Dillinger. No ifs, no whys, no hows. Just slow forward momentum, until the end.

I found Public Enemies lacking in meaningful narrative and character depth. Depp was quite capable in handling the lead role without resorting to stereotypical criminal gangster behavior, but towards the end, I didn’t know what to make of Bale’s Purvis, who remained sour-faced the entire time. 

I’m also surprised at the decision to stick to the facts for most of the film, and then totally rewrite history in the end. Based on history, Dillinger could have said, “You got me” or nothing when he died. I’m not sure why Mann suddenly ended with the unexpected emotional punch, “Tell Billie, ‘Bye-bye, blackbird.’”

What I did like is how the film presented both the criminal gangs and the FBI, showing them both to be public enemies in one form or another. There’s Dilinger making sure to rob only banks (declining to take part in kidnapping or train robbery), not really killing more than necessary, and releasing hostages. Then there’s the FBI, spraying a car full of civilians with bullets and torturing his girlfriend Billie (Marion Cotillard) for information about his whereabouts.

I suppose Public Enemies is not for the typical movie-goer who just wants a show. Nor is it for the regular movie-goer who wants to be handed a solid emotional connection with a film or a character. I have to concede that Mann’s style is still something new and also interesting for me.

I’ll probably still be in line for his next movie.