Now Rating: Public Enemies
Jeff Mason
Issue date: 7/1/09 Section: A&E
The summer is often a time full of fireballs and franchises. Every now and then, Hollywood likes to throw their audience a curveball and toss up a mid-season prestige pic. While that sounds all nice and well, director Michael Mann wouldn't want that, so he decided to make a flick full of gun fights, gangsters and gorgeous looking French gals. Unfortunately, the pieces to the puzzle just don't fit.
"Public Enemies" follows bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) in his quest to have whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Dillinger's mission is interrupted by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and his newest protégé, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). Purvis is put in charge of the FBI's Chicago bureau, a hotbed of crime including Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson, and told to put a stop to the rampage.
The issues with "Public Enemies" start with the introduction of Depp's love interest, Billie Frechette (Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard). Dillinger's attraction to Billie starts as simply seeing a gorgeous gal in a red dress across the room, but eventually transfers to an idyllic fascination about where people are going instead of where they are coming from.
The problem is that there's really nothing else going on between the two in terms of chemistry. Billie hardly seems to be intimidated by Dillinger's criminal lifestyle, but also has no reason to follow Dillinger aside from a nice fur coat and the promise of a life much better than the one she has. This might work, but we never see her other life and Mann never gives her the chance to make us believe in this. Instead, Billie just fawns over Dillinger for the rest of the movie for no apparent reason. It's as if Mann just threw the two together and said, "See, now you're a couple."
This goes on to hurt the story as well, since Billie is used as a plot device to lure Dillinger back to Chicago after his entire crew is whacked by Purvis' FBI squad. It's hard to buy Dillinger risking his freedom for a girl that he fell in love with for seemingly no reason. It's almost like he decided to fall in love instead of actually falling in love. This mess of a love story just feels forced and hurts the movie.
"Public Enemies" follows bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) in his quest to have whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Dillinger's mission is interrupted by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and his newest protégé, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). Purvis is put in charge of the FBI's Chicago bureau, a hotbed of crime including Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson, and told to put a stop to the rampage.
The issues with "Public Enemies" start with the introduction of Depp's love interest, Billie Frechette (Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard). Dillinger's attraction to Billie starts as simply seeing a gorgeous gal in a red dress across the room, but eventually transfers to an idyllic fascination about where people are going instead of where they are coming from.
The problem is that there's really nothing else going on between the two in terms of chemistry. Billie hardly seems to be intimidated by Dillinger's criminal lifestyle, but also has no reason to follow Dillinger aside from a nice fur coat and the promise of a life much better than the one she has. This might work, but we never see her other life and Mann never gives her the chance to make us believe in this. Instead, Billie just fawns over Dillinger for the rest of the movie for no apparent reason. It's as if Mann just threw the two together and said, "See, now you're a couple."
This goes on to hurt the story as well, since Billie is used as a plot device to lure Dillinger back to Chicago after his entire crew is whacked by Purvis' FBI squad. It's hard to buy Dillinger risking his freedom for a girl that he fell in love with for seemingly no reason. It's almost like he decided to fall in love instead of actually falling in love. This mess of a love story just feels forced and hurts the movie.
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