Public Enemies

Drew's Thoughts:
Having already been biographed reasonably well in 1945 and 1973 (both films called Dillinger) I wondered what a modern rendering of John Dillinger's life could offer us movie goers. Turns out to be surprisingly little, if anything.
The biggest letdown for me was the acting. With Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard all in the cast I was expecting some good performances even if it might be a lackluster film. Unfortunately I turned out to be quite wrong. First of all, Johnny Depp is surprisingly uncharismatic in this movie, and as a director if Johnny Depp manages to give an uncharismatic performance in your film you've really fucked up. Even in the rare instance where he doesn't play a quirky character as in Donnie Brasco, he is still a phenomenally captivating actor. In Public Enemies though, I didn't really care much about him either way. I wasn't rooting for him but I also wasn't absorbed in his "evilness" or something. In the previous Dillinger movies I mentioned, both Lawrence Tierney (in 1945) and Warren Oates (in 1973) had a mad dog mentality within them when they played the character, something surely Depp is capable of producing. Instead though, the character had no depth and it was hard to believe that this was a man that captivated the nation when he couldn't even captivate two people in their living room. Elsewhere in the cast, Bale is fine but his character doesn't have much more to go on than cliched heroics and Cotillard is okay, but doesn't really factor into the story all that much and doesn't have a good handle on an American accent yet either.
The blame should be mainly laid at the feet of the writers and director, Michael Mann, because, come on, look at what they had to work with Depp, Bale, Cotillard and, of course, Dillinger. Mann, no stranger to making bad films, really managed to strangle all the potential life out of this movie (not that the script provided much in the first place). The movie isn't necessarily "bad" either, it's just so bland that all it can inspire is apathy. It's pretty blah across the board too, which in a way is almost worse than a bad movie with a few redeeming elements. I don't anticipate it showing up anywhere at the next Dolphin ceremony.