UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

SimonJack It's okay to make a modern movie about one of the most notorious criminals in American history. And, the makers and cast of "Public Enemies" did a good job in portraying the main characters. Johnny Depp does a decent job portraying the fun-loving nature of John Dillinger. If anything, he is not as humorous or frequently smiling as the real J.D. And, Christian Bale portrays the always somber FBI agent Melvin Purvis well. Billy Crudup does a good job portraying the young, impetuous J. Edgar Hoover. "Public Enemies" also is a good portrayal of the widespread lawlessness of the time. Prohibition lasted from 1920 to the end of 1933. Bootleg booze was big business and organized crime flourished. The Great Depression was on and many homeless and jobless Americans turned to crime. The almost wholesale corruption of law enforcement in Chicago made it a haven for criminals.Thus, John Dillinger returned often to his base of operations after his bank robberies. To this extent, this film does a good job. But, from then on, one begins to wonder. Dillinger joked with the press and liked publicity. And, there was something of a cult following, especially among the young, including boys. Some had a skewed notion of Dillinger as a sort of Robin Hood. And this film seems to play along with that. If anything the dour Purvis is pictured as an obsessed pursuer. Of all the criminal charges against Dillinger, he had just one charge of homicide against him. But this film shows him in scene after scene with Tommy Guns and pistols blazing away and people falling to the ground. Is one to think that Dillinger couldn't hit anyone and that only others in his gang were able to shoot all those people?The film has a scene of a fictional meeting between Dillinger and Purvis. They never did meet face to face in real life. In the movie, Dillinger is behind bars and Purvis comes to look at him. As Purvis walks away, Dillinger says to him, that he should change his line of work. At that point, Bale (Purvis) stops and the camera holds on him a few seconds, showing that he's obviously thinking something. What was the point of that piece of fiction? Might not the writers instead have had Purvis make that statement to Dillinger? That would have squared more with the matter of right and wrong among those shown in this film. After all, wasn't it Dillinger who was being hunted and constantly fleeing to avoid the law? Wasn't it he who was in the wrong "line of work?"The film overall seems to have slight empathy for Dillinger and his girlfriend, Billie (played by Marion Cotillard). It never shows anything about the FBI agents, police, people in banks or others who are killed. There is no empathy for the families of those people. "Public Enemies" overall seems to glamorize the lives of a bunch of brazen bank robbers and killers. It sure is a lousy public statement about right and wrong, justice and law and order. One wonders why this film was made at all. Incidentally, the Tommy gun could be fired with a 100-round drum or a 32-round magazine feeding bullets at a rate of 900 per minute. In the film, the actors were using magazines. Yet only a couple of times did it show anyone changing a magazine. But many scenese showed the robbers firing the Tommy guns for long blasts, one after another. And never a change of ammo.

Dominic LeRose Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, the notorious gangster from the 1930s, is a ball to watch. He's a tough, dirty, smart criminal who knows how to entertain the audience. Johnny is at his best when he stops playing dress-up and takes off all the makeup and is just himself. He plays the bad guy as good as anyone, which is what he does beautifully here. Christian Bale is solid as the detective trying to take him down, but it's Michael Mann who returns to the crime genre to execute a thrilling, true story about mafia and the life of a brutal gangster in great fashion that brings us back to a critical decade in American history.

Jona1988 Michael Mann has made some really great movies. Heat and Collateral are amazing. But he has made some weaker ones as well. Unfortunately Public Enemies belongs to his weaker. I had high hopes for this when it was upcoming. The poster of Johnny Depp clad in a trench coat and fedora hat and holding a Tommy Gun looked so cool. I imagined this as being like Heat but set in the 1930s. In several ways the setup is kind of similar. Johnny Depp and Christian Bale two actors at top of their game felt perfect as the leads. The criminal vs. detective thriller with both being the main character. Unfortunately it fails in all the things that Heat did so brilliantly. I've seen Public Enemies again after my first disappointed reaction but even when I tried to ignore my expectations on the director being Michael Mann and not to compare it to Heat Public Enemies is still a dull movie. The movie looks stunning I feel they have totally succeeded in recreating the 1930s Depression-era USA. But while the outside looks great it is on the inside that it is lacking. The story that is based on reality is actually a good one but the movie somehow still makes it feel uninteresting and completely devoid of any real substance . A major problem for the story is that we never feel anything for the characters. The actors do well overall but the writing is the problem also here. Johnny Depp fits well as John Dillinger. He looks the part and I can't say anything bad about his acting. It's just that his character lacks any real personality. I feel it's not really clear how the viewer should relate to Dillinger should we root for or against him. And this can be said about all characters in the movie there is no substance or development for any of them. I could not care less relation between Dillinger and Marion Cotillard's character. Christian Bale does well with what he's got but his character is less the focus of the story than Depp's. However I do feel that his attempts at an accent is very inconsistent. Unfortunate is that the action is just as bland as the rest of the movie. Michael Mann can or could direct tense edge of your seat action scenes. But the gun fights here are short and stale. It's just men shooting at each other but there is nothing creative about the action scenes. I'm not expecting these massive action set pieces and I know it's based on true events which seldom are as exciting as we like to see on screen. That doesn't matter. I think of Mann's Collateral which no is not based on reality but my point is that a skilled director can create thrill and suspense without that much spectacular action happening. Public Enemies is a well made movie only technically but lacking creatively. What should have been thrilling is boring. Actors struggling due to lack of characterisation. In the end this is not really a bad movie but it's not good either. Disappointing and forgettable I am sad to conclude.

dentrex There are so many things wrong with this film I won't list them, other reviewers have pointed them all out correctly.For such an important, topical concept the script that was wrung - or squeezed to death - out of it was shameful. There is a lot of historical back story that would have made this film really sizzle. Capone, prohibition, the bank crisis and depression, Hoover and his Boyfriend Tolson, jeez these producers were asleep at the switch.I want to rewrite it, fund it and re-do the whole thing. If even Depp can't save it, WITH Christian Bale, then it's sunk like the Titanic, ripped apart by the horrific cinematography, and thankfully in THAT movie DiCaprio took the part, unlike this dud to which he said no. Good move Lenny, and what's your agent's phone number by the way x-D