PUBLIC ENEMIES (Michael Mann), 2009 - Depp, Bale

[troystiffler]

Digital can look alot 'better' than it does here. They weren't trying to imitate film. It was an obvious choice to make it look the way it looks.

[Dr Mabuse]

Originally Posted by JumpCutz

Empire's 5 star review...

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/...asp?FID=136004

Exactly what I said earlier.

Just what I predicted and expected.

"Within seconds of Michael Mann’s latest crime drama, there comes the chilling realization that, goddamn it, we have got to use our brain."

[Jaymole]

There are so many problems with that review I don't know where to start....

Anyway, what I would like is for Dr Mabuse to post, after he sees the film, all the details & complexities of the characters that I missed out on because I did not want to use my brain while watching the film.

[matrixrok9]

Originally Posted by PopcornTreeCt

Miami Vice is great. It's grown on me.

Watched some parts again on HD DVD and the major and obvious flaw in the movie is the acting. Especially, the leads, they try to hard to be cool and they have the supermodel look everytime they walk. Just felt unnatural, makes me wonder why Mann went this route when Collateral had cool characters and they didn't try too hard to act cool.

[stingermck]

Los Angeles (E! Online) – Johnny Depp is all over the posters for this Public Enemies movie. But Christian Bale is MIA. Shouldn't he be on the posters, too?

—Vanessa P.

Apparently when you have the option of showing Johnny Depp staring off into the middle distance and looking iconic, you don't need a second actor staring off into the middle distance and looking iconic. Not unless that second person carries the exact same, or better, commercial draw as Johnny Depp.

Christian Bale does not. You may think Bale does. You may want Bale to. But if that's the case, too bad for you. You're wrong.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/2009..._top_eo/130969

[Wazootyman]

Saw it at a packed preview screening tonight. So packed that I had to sit in the very front row, in the second to left most chair. It was the worst seat in the house (the guy in the left most chair smelled horrible... luckily he left 15 minutes in)

Anywho, as for the movie, I do agree with Jaymole on much of what he said. People do just drop in, and you need to work back who they are and where they fit in. Yes, it requires a brain, but some of the times when I was working back I made completely wrong conclusions.

Definitely would have liked to have seen more character development. Something, anything driving Purvis aside from his desire to do his job... maybe even

Spoiler:

drop in some hints that could point to his suicide, which is revealed in text at the end

Depp is fun and the action is great, but I left feeling ambivalent. I know my seating position definitely didn't help to put me in the right frame of mind.

[AnonomusBob15]

What does this even mean. Bale has a supporting role. Depp is the star.

My most anticipated film of the summer. Hope it's good.

[Wazootyman]

Originally Posted by AnonomusBob15

What does this even mean. Bale has a supporting role. Depp is the star.

My most anticipated film of the summer. Hope it's good.

Just because he's supporting doesn't mean they can't develop him.

[AnonomusBob15]

I meant to quote the article regarding the poster above.

[Doctor Gonzo]

A bit from the Empire review, and others:

Whatever James Cameron’s Avatar may resemble in cinema’s ‘big shake-up’ later this year, this less self-aggrandising film, shot entirely on an ultra-high resolution digital format, marks a new cinematic language. The genre may seem familiar, that rat-a-tat-tat of Tommy guns, molls and dapper hoods, but never with this level of immersion. If Mann’s mission was simply to portray the early ’30s with pin-sharp realism, he has triumphed. This is not a film about the ’30s — it is a film in the ’30s…

Mann may squirm, but the Heat-in-the-Depression tag is inevitable. The comparisons are numerous: cascading storylines, languid cityscapes, architectural framing and that rigorous unpicking of male psychology (cops and robbers are all deep-down misunderstood).

Yet, more than just their eras, the two films feel like different worlds. Such is the docu-clarity of this digital skin, you have to readjust your thinking. This isn’t the glamour of the movies, warmly draped in celluloid, but rather an instantaneous, ‘stunning’ reality: every facial pore, every herringbone stitch, every silvery wisp from a smoking gun comes crystal-clear. Strangely, it makes the film both period and contemporary: history through a sci-fi lens…

Mann’s movie lies at a cusp between great American genres: the dusty borderland between the Western and gangster movie.


From Variety:

“Public Enemies” emerges as a formidable tapestry documenting the indelible seismic shifts of large criminal and law enforcement entities that significantly define an era. As before in Mann’s work, there is a magisterial inevitability to the way the opposing forces gradually converge until violent confrontation is inevitable, a style that justifies the time and attention to detail involved in creating it.

More enthusiasm from Emmanuel Levy:

Structurally, big action scenes of glorious escape from prison and shoot-outs are integrated into the dramatic proceedings. Occasionally, the narrative slows down, in the romantic scenes between Dillinger and Billie, but Mann is a shrewd entertainer who knows when to switch from dialogue-driven sequences to thrilling set-pieces, which the HD cameras of ace cinematographer Dante Spinotti captures in alluring ways. A couple of scenes are simply breathtaking in their visual pizzazz, conveying through dark screens that suddenly erupt into spots of glaring white light both the movement and effect of gunshots…

In its painstaking attention to detail, “Public Enemies” recalls “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” made by another brilliant and perfectionist director, David Fincher. We get a feel of how things looked, but how people thought, how men courted women, what ex-convicts thought about life, fate, and death.

And the most unrestrained rave so far comes from Rex Reed:

Thrilling, glamorous, richly textured and breathlessly action-packed, it is one of the best movies of the year.

It’s all here, exhaustively researched and painstakingly re-created. Curiously, there’s no mention of Dillinger’s wife, Beryl, and Michael Mann’s screenplay, co-written with Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, takes liberties by condensing some events and combining a few characters, but with so many informers, gunmen and tertiary historic plot contributors, it’s amazing that so few key elements found their way into the discard pile. From Billy Crudup, as the silly, publicity-seeking J. Edgar Hoover, to Johnny Depp’s magnetic starring role, replete with neatly cropped hair, piercing dark eyes, no sign of a tattoo and a lewd smile in the corner of his eyes, every role large and small is polished to perfection. (Johnny Depp gives the best performance of his career.) Even the bank plunders in broad daylight seem freshly staged. Since it’s more in the biographical vein of Bugsy than the grand opera of The Godfather, no easy comparisons come instantly to mind. But with the shiny cars with white-wall tires; the tailored, double-breasted pinstriped suits that give you an idea where Giorgio Armani’s fashion inspiration comes from; the music (lots of early Billie Holiday and big band jazz); and the navy blue midnight world of the Great Depression—Mr. Mann does more to illustrate the fabric of the gangster era than any film since Pete Kelly’s Blues.

In the process, Public Enemies becomes one glamorous, glorious, gun-blazing whale of an entertainment.

[Jaymole]

I decided to present some more review bits mainly because the post above quotes a bit from an overall NEGATIVE review (I liked the film more than these reviewers did, but they illustrate some of the problems I had with it...and sometimes very high expectations can cause disappointment. I recommend the film, just keep your expectations in check and you will enjoy it).

AP review :

"The director of "Heat" and "The Insider" has said he was fascinated by Dillinger not just as a daring criminal but as the hero he became for regular people, folks who blamed the banks for their financial troubles during the Depression. Dillinger robbed those very institutions, which felt to them like an act of vigilante justice.

But nowhere in "Public Enemies" will you find that sentiment explored or even hinted at in a cursory way. Dillinger is famous here, of course — he's Public Enemy No. 1, hence the title — but there's little sense of his public perception, not much context for his notoriety. Mann also doesn't really depict the poverty or desperation of the time; Dillinger usually spends time in cars, banks and glamorous haunts with slick cohorts. He's more like a charming guy committing questionable acts.

Mann romanticizes him, rather than presenting a complete picture including whatever wildness or darkness might have existed inside him and driven him. (He co-wrote the script with Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, based on journalist Bryan Burrough's book.)"

From Variety:

"Overall impact is muted. Oddly, too, the film is somewhat shortchanged by its great star, Johnny Depp, who disappointingly has chosen to play Dillinger as self-consciously cool rather than earthy and gregarious.

"Mann's decision to shoot in HD rather than film again has its plusses and minuses; the detail and depth of field are phenomenal in the dark scenes, but the bright flaring, occasional unnatural movements and excessive detailing of skin flaws remain annoying, as does the insubstantiality of the images compared to those created on film. Digital may represent the future, but the future is not entirely here yet, and the pictorial qualities of Mann's films prior to "Collateral" remain decisively superior to the recent trio."

From Box Office:

"Dillinger was a charming psychopath who killed easily and liked risk. He reveled in his notoriety and even played to it where he could, something Public Enemies flirts with as required but ultimately never does more than display."

[Blu Man]

Except for the fact that there useing shit cameras it looks like a good movie. The image quality is so horrible it's distracting. Plus they look like retards running around there during action scene's with little consumer video cameras. It's unprofessional and lazy. Other then that it looks good.

[JimRochester]

I liked the movie but it definately was no Untouchables. I'm usually satisfied with an action version of porn. Throw in enough bullets, and tits and who cares about the plot? But in this case it really did nothing to touch on Purvis and Hoover and the relationship between them and the media. Even the story on Dillinger himself was shallow. It was enjoyable but it really could have been so much better. And can I ask all directors to stop their love affair with hand-held cameras? I hate getting dizzy watching a movie.

To add insult to injury the guy in front of us would not stop talking. He had to comment on everything' did you see that?, oh, he really got it!, that must be so and so. Through the whole goddamn movie. I asked him twice to keep it down and even his kids kept saying "Dad be quiet" Fuckin retard, thanks for ruining my movie. You owe me $20.

[RyoHazuki]

Originally Posted by stingermck

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20090624/en_top_eo/130969

Depp's screen time doubles, possibly triples, Bale's in the film. I don't see the issue here.

[felixm13]

Originally Posted by Wazootyman

Just because he's supporting doesn't mean they can't develop him.

Maybe they should've had him walking through the gangsters layout...like Depp did the police station. Ridiculous!

I think his character got the shaft...it seemed like at one point it was his movie and then they got Depp and the Purvis role just kept getting smaller.

[B.A.]

***1/2 out of five.

This is the first time that I did not care for the digital cameras that Mann has been using of late.

[redcat]

I saw this yesterday and was completely disappointed. I get so sick of seeing criminals romanticized and presented as heroes for no reason. Johnny Depp spends so much time looking cool that he seems to forget he's supposed to playing a human character. The script was ridiculous - so many set-ups for Depp to spout some nonsense poet/ philosopher line that you could make a drinking game out of it. I'd be curious to see what someone who knows about Dillinger's actual life would make of this story arc. From what I read on Wikipedia -

Spoiler:

the whole Billie thing was basically fiction at the end. He had a new girlfriend when he died. Additionally, his death was not the cold-blooded killing the film depicted. It was a shootout.

Why not be more honest about how many cops and guards Dillinger killed? Instead, we have to see meaningless emphasis on crap like, "I'm here for the bank's money, not yours." What a cool guy!

[sauce07]

Originally Posted by redcat

Why not be more honest about how many cops and guards Dillinger killed? Instead, we have to see meaningless emphasis on crap like, "I'm here for the bank's money, not yours." What a cool guy!

Kind of the opposite for me. Every time I started to have that old feeling that JD was a robin hood/rock star, they showed him kill a cop or guard and I was reminded that he was a murderer.

[redcat]

Originally Posted by sauce07

Kind of the opposite for me. Every time I started to have that old feeling that JD was a robin hood/rock star, they showed him kill a cop or guard and I was reminded that he was a murderer.

Maybe you're right. In my mind, I was thinking they showed his accomplices killing cops more than him, but I might just not be remembering it right.

[Ash Ketchum]

Just for the record, Dillinger killed one lawman, a cop named O'Malley, during a bank job. That's the only killing attributed to him. And he felt remorse over it. Which, of course, does nothing to mitigate his choice to embark on a life of crime. Other lawmen were killed by his gang during their criminal activities, including kindly old Sheriff Sarber, who was tending the jail when Dillinger's buddies came to break him out. Dillinger had to carry the weight of that one, too. And three innocent federal workers were killed in the Little Bohemia lodge shootout. They were shot by the Feds because they were driving away and, with the radio on and the windows shut to keep out the cold, didn't hear the Feds telling them to stop. But the Feds were there for Dillinger.

Dillinger wasn't a psychopath or sociopath like the other midwestern bandits but he was still a career criminal, and good lawmen died trying to apprehend him.

Like I've said before on this thread, read the book, "Public Enemies," by Bryan Burrough.

[sauce07]

Originally Posted by redcat

Maybe you're right. In my mind, I was thinking they showed his accomplices killing cops more than him, but I might just not be remembering it right.

I don't see a difference between actually killing a cop and shooting at one. The movie shows JD on numerous occasions firing on cops/guards, it doesn't matter that he was a bad shot, intention rules in this case.

In the movie they make a point to show that he wasn't a sociopath like Babyface Nelson, but when his life was on the line he would shoot.

[droidguy1119]

I saw it at the dollar theater today and thought it was pretty good. I don't know if I thought it was great, but I also don't think there was anything particularly wrong with it...it's a weirdly open-ended experience.

I also can't stop thinking about Marion Cotillard.

[Dr Mabuse]

I'm noticing the 'quiet voices, loud gunshots' on the DVD as I watch it now.

Blu Ray actually.

[Dr Mabuse]

This is Mann's most mature film, and it's also my favorite from him.

I couldn't have enjoyed it more. What a great movie.

I am on the fence on the digital stuff, it just didn't bother me like it did some of you. It didn't take me out of the film once, but that's just me.

[JimRochester]

^ I thought it was pretty good. I would have enjoyed it so much more had the a$$hole in front of me not been giving the audience play-by-play everytime something happened. Oh my GOD, did you see that?! He shot him!

People like that give theater going a bad name.