Public Enemies

I hate to do this to Mann, but I just can't rate higher this time. His Public Enemies is a stylish and very appealing film on the outside, but inside it’s desperately underdeveloped and unremarkable, passing only out of inertia and the memories of the great Heat, which is on a much higher level both in content and form, as it relies on a better script and can lean on De Niro and Pacino, whose personal rivalry is the strongest motif of the story. And that's what's sorely lacking here, because Christian Bale, however charismatic and convincing, is sidelined at the expense of Depp's gangster, who plays first fiddle and sets the pace of the story. The long runtime is also a bit of a problem, Mann uses it to create the right period atmosphere and to precisely outline the relationship between Depp and Cotillard, but it slows down the narrative and, something that’s especially noticeable, fails to establish a stronger relationship between the viewer and the main characters, so that we ultimately don't know who to root for. That said, the shootouts and the action sequences are excellent, Mann is at home there and no one can compete with him, as well as the musical score, the authentic cinematography and an the emotionally charged ending that at least partially redeems the reputation. After Heat I expected a lot, but I don't think it's possible to repeat such a film. 70% (02/07/2013)

A "Michael Mann film" with everything there is to love and hate about it. It's probably going to have a hard time getting through the movie theaters, judging by the reaction of the Johnny Depp fans sitting next to me when I was sitting in there, but it's a hot contender for the title of "film of the year." (07/10/2009)

Another gem with heart and conceptual depth that many people (in the cinema, but also on FilmBooster) won't understand and will only see what is visible at first glance: a standard and routine crime story with a handheld camera and raw shootouts with a minimum of emotions. Michael Mann is still the same, but the film is incredibly cool and well thought out. A slightly weaker version of Heat, more intimate and unfortunately set in the 1930s. (07/25/2009)

There’s no need to hide it under a mountain of text, when one word is enough to describe Public Enemies to the tee: borefest; maybe extended with the adjective digital. It’s hard to say why this flat gangster flick needed to be so long, when not a single one of the protagonists develops in any noticeable way (Purvis has only goal for the entire film and Dillinger doesn't evolve at all after meeting Billie). The biggest problem is how uninteresting both of the main characters are; what can you do when you don’t have anyone to root for (because both of them can be seen negatively) and you don’t give a toss about their fates? A weaker 6/10. (08/18/2009)

On the one hand, the digital camera (I don't get it, but by the end I got used to it), the drawn-out plot and several historical inaccuracies, on the other hand, the perfect actors and especially the actress, the excellently filmed shootouts, very suspenseful scenes and Goldenthal's magical music. Public Enemies is good, even very good, but it’s not perfect. If Michael Mann had wanted to make something like Heat from the 1930s (and he probably did, given how sympathetically or unsympathetically Dillinger and Purvis are portrayed), he didn't succeed. But nobody expected that anyway, did they? (03/12/2013)