Review: Public Enemies (5/10) - 2009: Camerawork Is Criminal

When the first glimpses of Johnny Depp and Christian Bale's new onscreen adventure played out in the preview section before a movie I was watching in the cinema a while back, I was literally taken aback by the sheer quality of film the trailer promised me. Often a trailer can ruin a movie, but in other instances it can offer insight into the type of acting, filming style and music you will witness when sitting down to watch the movie itself.

This was possibly one of the first movies that, after watching the trailer, I had been excited to watch in a quite a while (aside from Inglourious Basterds which I've been waiting 4 years for),. The combination of suspense and drama of an old-fashioned gangster movie lasting a bum-numbing 140 minutes was exciting in itself as I really enjoyed Road To Perdition.

The film was directed by Michael Mann, who has previously produced the likes of The Aviator (2004) and more recently Hancock (2008), and directed Ali (2001), Collateral (2004) and Miami Vice (2006). Public Enemies' starring lineup include the likes of Johnny Depp and Christian Bale as mentioned, in addition to Marion Cotillard, Stephen Dorff and Stephen Graham to name a few.

The story follows the final years of John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), a notorious bank robber living in 1930's Chicago, who loved his trade and was constantly one the run from the authorities and FBI. The movie covers Dillinger's affections for Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), and their increasing love affair whilst the rest of the world flies by. Similarly, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), an FBI agent hired to track Dillinger down is added to the equation providing numerous gun battles, action scenes and solid performances from both Depp and Bale, that almost save this movie single-handedly from catastrofic production failure (in my opinion).

In order to envisage what I am trying to explain, please view the official trailer below:


At first glance this trailer promises the world to the viewer, and I expect that you, the reader are questioning my judgement and disagreeing with everything I've mentioned about the film so far (aside from the storyline). If I had not sat through the movie I would also agree with you, however I must insist that the way this movie is filmed, I believe a one-armed, blind chimpanzee could have caught the action (and even still shots) more accurately.

Every sequence seemed to be shot in zoom and on a handicam, not to mention super-fast editing from one zoom to another, resulting in mild epilepsy and nausia to the viewer. Parts of the gun-fighting scenes seemed poorly produced on an After Effects and graphics scale, and the lack of a steadicam in every single scene, apart from those lifted for the trailer, were abysmal.

Acting-wise I believed that Billie (Cotillard) throughout the movie was in-fact American until the final scenes, when it turns out this is not the case and her accent shifts to an Eastern European style, thus throwing her entire performance out of proportion. Stephen Graham's transition from 'This Is England' hardman to Baby Face Nelson was very well acted. Stephen Dorff was hardly recogniseable, which could be down to either good acting, or poor scripting for his character.

Johnny Depp needs no introduction in my opinion and whilst I do not believe that this was his finest performance, I could not find anything particularly off-putting about it either. Leonardo DiCaprio was initially to star in a leading role for this movie when it was put into development in 2004 (IMDB), and what an interesting combination that would have made (provided Depp or Bale were not removed in the process).

Similarly, Christian Bale used his stern, "hard-ass" acting ability similar to American Psycho, a character to which he portray's perfectly time and time again, thus saving the film from becoming a completely lacklustre production with a fairly hefty budget. The costumes used throughout the movie were extremely well selected, as were the automobiles and general scenery.

IMDB state that:

"The gunfight at the lodge in the woods was filmed at the Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish Waters, WI which is the actual location where the gunfight between Dillinger and the FBI took place in 1934. In fact, shell casings from the 1934 gunfight can still be found in the woods surrounding the lodge."

The film also provides a cameo appearance from Emilie DeRavin (Lost) early on in the movie. Click here for more Trivia or Goofs, but I must warn that they contain spoilers. In all, I rated this movie a 5/10 as to the way the entire cinematographical process was produced, as I keep mentioning (I seriously can't get over it). This inevitably led to the poor quality and constant headache that most people in the cinema endured, and if it weren't for solid script and acting from the majority of the cast and crew, the score would be a lot lower unfortunately.