Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
7/8/09
“Perhaps there is
no moral to this story.”
“Exactly.
It's just a bunch of stuff that happened.”
-Lisa and Homer
Simpson
When
reviewing movies, we are required to assign credit or blame to aspects
of a film based on our own incomplete understanding of just whose responsibility
those attributes are. Within those confines, allow me to choose to
make a wild, sweeping statement: the summer movies of 2009 have been
brutalized by the 2007-08 writers' strike. Sure, screenwriting has
never been a strong suit of summer blockbusters, but this year's crop is
filled with movies that scream “We haven't really thought this out!”.
After the undercooked likes of Night
at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Transformers:
Revenge of the Fallen predictably struggled with the whole story thing,
now we have a surprise: Public Enemies, Michael Mann's film
about the final days of John Dillinger, goes adequately through the paces
of the historical record and sports strong lead performances by Johnny
Depp and Christian Bale. But the script credited to Mann, Ronan Bennett
and Ann Biderman fails to even attempt the most important challenge writers
face when telling historical tales: it doesn't seem to have the slightest
idea of what this story means.
1933:
at the Indiana State Prison, bank robber John Dillinger leads a daring
breakout, then resumes his crime spree with the help of a network of safe
houses and mob lawyers. The first step is to relocate to Chicago
to avoid a criminal justice system that can only prosecute within the state
where the crime occurred. There, his gang, including right-hand Homer
Van Meter (Stephen Dorff), mocks law enforcement with quick, showy robberies
that captivate a Depression-era public inclined to view banks as bigger
criminals than the thieves. Shutting down the crime wave of which
they are only a part is the top priority of FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover (Billy
Crudup), who appoints Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) the new head of his
Chicago field office after he guns down Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum).
Despite Homer's advice to stay away from relationships, Dillinger falls
at first sight for coat check girl Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard)
and incorporates her into a lifestyle of hiding in plain sight. But
things change when times change: the mob's money is increasingly
coming from bookmaking and other “legitimate” crime, and the spectacle
of violent criminals like Dillinger brings heat they can't afford.
Cut off from their safety net, the gang must join forces with the unstable
Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) to try and make ends meet. Dillinger
knows he's in an ever-closing box, but he's determined to die as he lived,
and Pervis will be happy to oblige him.
There
are a lot of words one could use to describe Public Enemies, words
like “slow”, “deliberate” and occasionally “boring”. I never lost
interest in the forward progress of the story, but I'd be lying if I didn't
admit that on two different occasions I was awakened by gunshots.
While the historical subject matter generally defaults to a running time
well over 2 hours (140 minutes in this case), the movie is easily 40 minutes
too long as Dillinger and his compatriots spend scene after scene living
large and discussing his unwillingness to plan for the future. The
writers also cram far too many historical figures into their narrative,
resulting in a cast full of similar-looking actors playing underdeveloped
roles it's hard to tell apart. During the chases and shootouts, I
wasn't even always clear on who was a Fed and who was a crook.
But
the important thing is that the movie's most important roles are extremely
well-played. Depp spends a lot of time playing larger-than-life fantasy
characters, so it's a nice change of pace to watch him get into the skin
of a low-key, cold-blooded criminal like Dillinger. Bale, the reigning
master of smoldering, pent-up violence, delivers a whole lot more Melvin
Purvis than seems to be on the page, to the point where not a single line
of dialog or on-screen action hints at what the final on-screen crawl reveals,
but it didn't surprise me at all. Cotillard does a good job showing
the Depression-era mindset that would make Dillinger seem not only like
a catch, but also a hero to her. Crudup makes a splendid Hoover,
a mad self-promoter of no particular law enforcement skill. On of
my favorite things about Mann is that he often gives veteran actors little
showcase roles in which to shine. Stephen Lang owns the screen as
veteran fed Charles Winstead, making his every proclamation awesome even
before he gets his big scene at the end. And Lili Taylor is so commanding
in a single scene as a local Sheriff that she seems to have wondered in
from a full movie about her character.
Mann
and his crew do a fantastic job of summoning the time period. Without
a hint of showiness, it is persuasively 1933 from beginning to end.
Only one odd moment breaks the spell, when an FDIC sign is featured so
prominently at a bank, it might get some votes for Best Supporting Actor.
Did Mann feel the need to assure us that the money Dillinger stole was
insured? Because it actually wasn't; the FDIC didn't start insuring
deposits until the following year. The director's not entirely on
his game, but he's not entirely off it either. The action sequences
show his command of the bruising realities of gunplay, and the climax has
the familiar epic slow-motion sweep he created on TV's Miami Vice
and most skillfully used in the closing moments of Last of the Mohicans
(still his best film for my money). But long periods of time do pass
without much purpose, and he's got to take responsibility for that as well.
I have
to circle back around to the point I started with. As the movie goes
on and on, I kept waiting for it to actually SAY something about what the
events we were seeing meant. That's what movies do, they take historical
events and give them context and narrative focus. I swished some
ideas around; that we were witnessing the time when Cowboys & Indians
gave way to a world where the good guys and bad guys were mostly the same
kinds of suits entwined in mutual self-interest; that Purvis was learning
to his despair that his vision of “scientific law enforcement” was naïve
in the face of real violent crime. But if any of this is the true
intent of Public Enemies, I need a screenplay credit, because no
scenes or lines ever try to round any of this off. I did like the
skillful use of the outrageously aptly titled Manhattan Melodrama,
the movie Dillinger attended the night the Woman in Red caught up with
him. But that very skill betrays the thematic emptiness of the rest
of the movie: can't say you're too subtle to underline your points
the rest of the time but then go cranking up Clark Gable's dialog the moment
he says something important.
Public
Enemies has a lot of problems, and it's hard to call it anything other
than a disappointment. But it does deliver solid acting from its'
well-cast stars, quality period detail and just enough narrative drive
to keep a person interested. Except those couple times when I nodded
off. But I blame the writers' strike for that. |
