Besides, the book is called Public Enemies.Eric wrote:Best explanation for this I've heard is that the FBI is one of the titular "enemies."Mister Tee wrote:And why call this Public Enemies, as if it dealt with a wide range of criminals, when it's about 90% Dillinger?
Public Enemies
"It's the least most of us can do, but less of us will do more."
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Mister Tee
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I saw this last week and have barely been able to summon the energy for a reaction.
I didn't have the "Wow, that looks awful" response so many of you have -- it looked pretty much like a standard movie. Possibly this is because I don't have the technical expertise to tell digital from the usual...or it may be that everyone had so prepared me for something so shocking (along the lines of the Kathleen Turner Julia & Julia, first film I saw shot on video) that the actual difference failed to register.
Anyway, for me the film's real failing was at the story level. Back in the day, Bugsy was fairly knocked for not having much new to add to the mob ouevre, but Bugsy was a font of freshness and insight compared to this rehash. This is an old, oft-told story (I heard about Dillinger/Biograph/Lady in Red when I was like 10 years old), and there wasn't much new detail I saw to make this version interesting. Tapley over at his site was selling the Depp/Cotillard romance as some high point, but I thought it was utterly by-the-book love interest. (Depp even had dialogue that bordered on parody) My interest in any of these figures as characters was nil.
As for the crime part of the film, it was familiar material (the soap/gun was in the 1945 Lawrence Tierney film), but did get marginally more interesting with the Wisconsin shootout. Even that part of the film, though, was prevented from really taking off by such poor lighting in the outdoor scenes that it was hard to be sure who was in any particular shot. I'd thought I'd seen Depp and his right-hand man commandeer a car of their own, but when Nelson pulled over to pick up two others, it could have been Dillinger and pal for all the look at their faces I got. Shortly after, when Purvis announced that all of Dillinger's associates were dead, my reaction was, I'll have to take your word for it, because I didn't have a clue who was dead or alive. (And wasn't it perverse, to cast recognizable actors like Lili Taylor and Giovanni Ribisi in barely-there roles, and then to populate the gang with a blur of unfamilar and hard-to distinguish faces?)
I've heard people offer praise for the non-fiction book on which this movie is based, and I'm guessing that might be because the book offered substantial background detail. The problem is, such detail is not what's going to make it into a movie, which has to concentrate primarily on base-line story -- the part that's most familiar to all of us. (And, in that context, a clearly-invented scene like Dillinger roaming through the Dillinger squad room stands out as phony, given that it occurs amid a movie so proud otherwise of its verisimilitude)
Speaking of which: was the Lady in Red just a media myth? Given the accent on the factual, leaving out something so widely-known has to have been deliberate. Are we supposed to think the orange & white combo of Depp's betrayer was mistaken for red?
And why call this Public Enemies, as if it dealt with a wide range of criminals, when it's about 90% Dillinger?
I didn't have the "Wow, that looks awful" response so many of you have -- it looked pretty much like a standard movie. Possibly this is because I don't have the technical expertise to tell digital from the usual...or it may be that everyone had so prepared me for something so shocking (along the lines of the Kathleen Turner Julia & Julia, first film I saw shot on video) that the actual difference failed to register.
Anyway, for me the film's real failing was at the story level. Back in the day, Bugsy was fairly knocked for not having much new to add to the mob ouevre, but Bugsy was a font of freshness and insight compared to this rehash. This is an old, oft-told story (I heard about Dillinger/Biograph/Lady in Red when I was like 10 years old), and there wasn't much new detail I saw to make this version interesting. Tapley over at his site was selling the Depp/Cotillard romance as some high point, but I thought it was utterly by-the-book love interest. (Depp even had dialogue that bordered on parody) My interest in any of these figures as characters was nil.
As for the crime part of the film, it was familiar material (the soap/gun was in the 1945 Lawrence Tierney film), but did get marginally more interesting with the Wisconsin shootout. Even that part of the film, though, was prevented from really taking off by such poor lighting in the outdoor scenes that it was hard to be sure who was in any particular shot. I'd thought I'd seen Depp and his right-hand man commandeer a car of their own, but when Nelson pulled over to pick up two others, it could have been Dillinger and pal for all the look at their faces I got. Shortly after, when Purvis announced that all of Dillinger's associates were dead, my reaction was, I'll have to take your word for it, because I didn't have a clue who was dead or alive. (And wasn't it perverse, to cast recognizable actors like Lili Taylor and Giovanni Ribisi in barely-there roles, and then to populate the gang with a blur of unfamilar and hard-to distinguish faces?)
I've heard people offer praise for the non-fiction book on which this movie is based, and I'm guessing that might be because the book offered substantial background detail. The problem is, such detail is not what's going to make it into a movie, which has to concentrate primarily on base-line story -- the part that's most familiar to all of us. (And, in that context, a clearly-invented scene like Dillinger roaming through the Dillinger squad room stands out as phony, given that it occurs amid a movie so proud otherwise of its verisimilitude)
Speaking of which: was the Lady in Red just a media myth? Given the accent on the factual, leaving out something so widely-known has to have been deliberate. Are we supposed to think the orange & white combo of Depp's betrayer was mistaken for red?
And why call this Public Enemies, as if it dealt with a wide range of criminals, when it's about 90% Dillinger?
I will say this: what Public Enemies has ignited is more worthwhile than any other version of the film Mann could have made had he decided to be a rational human being. He's not a rational human being and this straight-up mess has arrived in movie theaters hordes of pissed-off moviegoers now forced to deal with digital cinema as it CAN look. The best he could have done with this script was make something disposable and entertaining. Instead, we have something different. I don't like it but here it is.
"How's the despair?"
I am definitely on the Miami Vice kicked ass side of the Mann debate...but Public Enemies just has not seemed like a must see at all...even always being intrigued by a new Mann film.
Billy Crudup is a guy I have always felt should possess the "star quality" of a Johnny Depp...or hell, even a Christian Bale. He is very underappreciated and more interesting draw for me than either of them.
Billy Crudup is a guy I have always felt should possess the "star quality" of a Johnny Depp...or hell, even a Christian Bale. He is very underappreciated and more interesting draw for me than either of them.
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FilmFan720
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I saw this movie today and while the cinematography was distracting in some scenes, I liked it. The home video style also gave it some sort of realism, but I can understand why so many people loathe it. The gun fights are adrenaline rushes evenly spread out with the tense, and sometimes charming, story giving it a steady pace. It is essentially a drawn out version of romanticized gangster flicks with subtle performances from a strong cast. Depp, Cotillard, and Crudup were excellent and Bale was surprisingly low-key, which was a breath of fresh air. One of the big criticisms I've heard was of Dillinger's characterization, and while Depp does play Dillinger in a cool, collected way, it works thematically with the ending.
"It's the least most of us can do, but less of us will do more."
I loathed Miami Vice with every single atom in my body. I guess that means I should stay away from this. Of course, the participation of Constipated, er, Christian Bale was automatically a deterrent.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
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Sonic Youth
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anonymous1980
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Eric wrote:Just so's we're clear, is there anyone who was a fan of Miami Vice that also hates this one?
... 'Cause Miami Vice kicked ass.
I checked out Miami Vice based on the recommendations of the people in this board.
I hated-- Well, hate is such a strong word. Let's just say I disliked it. Having not seen Public Enemies yet, I would say Collateral is my favorite Michael Mann film this decade so far.
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The Original BJ
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It's pretty disappointing how pointless this whole thing feels.
First of all -- yikes on the photography! I'm not opposed to digital per se; I think it works for stuff that's supposed to be rough around the edges (like, say, Breaking the Waves). But not for a '30's period piece. The whole thing looks ugly and amateurish, and I can't fathom how someone somewhere didn't put the kabosh on that choice.
But worse is the fact that the story is wholly unengaging. Oh, there are some solid sequences -- the jail break, Dillinger in the squad headquarters, the final movie theater scene -- but they don't hang together in any interesting way, and the film is mostly lacking in ideas about Dillinger and the men who chased him. There's really no reason why this story needed to be told again, since the perspective isn't anything fresh or thought-provoking. (And watching snippets of Manhattan Melodrama reminded me how zippy those early gangster movies were. Certainly they didn't clock in at over two hours.)
It's really a bummer that one of the few big-budget adult dramas this summer -- and with such talented people involved no less -- should be this underwhelming.
First of all -- yikes on the photography! I'm not opposed to digital per se; I think it works for stuff that's supposed to be rough around the edges (like, say, Breaking the Waves). But not for a '30's period piece. The whole thing looks ugly and amateurish, and I can't fathom how someone somewhere didn't put the kabosh on that choice.
But worse is the fact that the story is wholly unengaging. Oh, there are some solid sequences -- the jail break, Dillinger in the squad headquarters, the final movie theater scene -- but they don't hang together in any interesting way, and the film is mostly lacking in ideas about Dillinger and the men who chased him. There's really no reason why this story needed to be told again, since the perspective isn't anything fresh or thought-provoking. (And watching snippets of Manhattan Melodrama reminded me how zippy those early gangster movies were. Certainly they didn't clock in at over two hours.)
It's really a bummer that one of the few big-budget adult dramas this summer -- and with such talented people involved no less -- should be this underwhelming.
This movie sucks.
Beyond the aesthetic which is butt-ugly, in Mann's attempt to superficially demythologize something innately mythological, he winds up in the process negating any sense of character, narrative, nothing. It's like watching a fart artifact on the screen. He is trying to show us that these gangsters are just as mundane and cluster-fucked as we are by using warts-and-all HD, all leading up to one conceptual coup that he builds the film around: normal HD-shot 30's people watching Clark Gable's Manhattan Melodrama. They were not characters in movies but they watched them just as we did. Great. Took you two-and-a-half fucking hours to make anything resembling a point. South Park did an episode about the kids trying to free a whale and launch it into space because they thought it could talk and was an alien from another planet (just go with me). The episode ended with them very proud of themselves for finally freeing the whale and launching it into space...and the image over credits is a dead whale on the moon. Public Enemies is a dead whale on the moon.
Beyond the aesthetic which is butt-ugly, in Mann's attempt to superficially demythologize something innately mythological, he winds up in the process negating any sense of character, narrative, nothing. It's like watching a fart artifact on the screen. He is trying to show us that these gangsters are just as mundane and cluster-fucked as we are by using warts-and-all HD, all leading up to one conceptual coup that he builds the film around: normal HD-shot 30's people watching Clark Gable's Manhattan Melodrama. They were not characters in movies but they watched them just as we did. Great. Took you two-and-a-half fucking hours to make anything resembling a point. South Park did an episode about the kids trying to free a whale and launch it into space because they thought it could talk and was an alien from another planet (just go with me). The episode ended with them very proud of themselves for finally freeing the whale and launching it into space...and the image over credits is a dead whale on the moon. Public Enemies is a dead whale on the moon.
"How's the despair?"
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Mister Tee
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Screen Daily
Public Enemies
24 June, 2009 | By Tim Grierson
Dir: Michael Mann. US. 2009. 140 mins.
Working in his trademark epic-crime-drama mode, Heat director Michael Mann delivers a satisfying and absorbing portrait of the rise and fall of 1930s bank robber John Dillinger in Public Enemies. As expected, Mann’s period piece is technically flawless and visually accomplished, but the more heartening news is that this perfectionist filmmaker doesn’t let the stylish action completely overwhelm his characters, a failing which has held back some of his more recent films.
Opening in the US and UK on July 1, a week after Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen,Public Enemies is aiming for more discriminating adult audiences alongside the action crowd and should perform towards the higher end of Mann’s work (2004’s Collateral, which grossed $218m worldwide), boosted particularly by Johnny Depp in the lead role. Lifted by warm notices, this could be a breakout hit.
In 1933 during the thick of the Great Depression, flashy bank robber John Dillinger (Depp) breaks out of prison and embarks on a crime wave that draws the attention of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (Crudup), who recruits agent Melvin Purvis (Bale) to hunt him down. Meanwhile, Dillinger falls in love with a coat-check girl, Billie Frechette (Cotillard), and convinces her to join him on the lam.
Director and co-writer Michael Mann has often shown a passion for the inner workings of criminals and cops and their shared devotion to duty and honor (Heat, Collateral). But his last film, Miami Vice, illustrated the limits of this approach, which often favours brilliantly choreographed action scenes and terse tough-guy dialogue over resonant characters – especially females, who usually serve as romantic playthings.
Public Enemies doesn’t entirely correct that imbalance, but this lengthy film engrosses because Mann does delve a little deeper into his characters’ psychology.
Working from Bryan Burrough’s non-fiction book about Dillinger and the formation of the FBI, Mann, production designer Nathan Crowley and cinematographer Dante Spinotti have done a stunning job recreating the era while, at the same time, making the film feel contemporary. Much of that credit must go to Spinotti, whose glorious, handheld HD-camera images lend Public Enemies an urgency and immediacy which are a far cry from most period films.
Several members of Public Enemies’ large cast turn in strong work that adds to the story’s dramatic authenticity and drive. As Dillinger, Depp remains a bit of an enigma, conveying the thief’s arrogance and sardonic irreverence without dipping into the theatricality of his roles in Pirates Of The Caribbean or Sweeney Todd. Bale plays Purvis as a straight-arrow lawman who discovers to his horror how easy it is to cross ethical lines in order to apprehend wrongdoers. While his emotional journey seemingly echoes the U.S. government’s modern-day moral troubles ith “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the wake of 9/11, Bale makes the political commentary relatable on a personal level. As for Cotillard, she may be yet another second-fiddle love interest in a Michael Mann film, but at least her charm and steel give the role needed depth, especially with the love story growing in importance as the film reaches its conclusion.
Action connoisseurs have always adored Mann for his bravura set pieces, and Public Enemies doesn’t disappoint in this regard. Kicking off with a thrilling prison break, the film moves sleekly from sequence to sequence, finding innovative new ways to stage action scenes and wring tension from seemingly commonplace set-ups.
Public Enemies
24 June, 2009 | By Tim Grierson
Dir: Michael Mann. US. 2009. 140 mins.
Working in his trademark epic-crime-drama mode, Heat director Michael Mann delivers a satisfying and absorbing portrait of the rise and fall of 1930s bank robber John Dillinger in Public Enemies. As expected, Mann’s period piece is technically flawless and visually accomplished, but the more heartening news is that this perfectionist filmmaker doesn’t let the stylish action completely overwhelm his characters, a failing which has held back some of his more recent films.
Opening in the US and UK on July 1, a week after Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen,Public Enemies is aiming for more discriminating adult audiences alongside the action crowd and should perform towards the higher end of Mann’s work (2004’s Collateral, which grossed $218m worldwide), boosted particularly by Johnny Depp in the lead role. Lifted by warm notices, this could be a breakout hit.
In 1933 during the thick of the Great Depression, flashy bank robber John Dillinger (Depp) breaks out of prison and embarks on a crime wave that draws the attention of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (Crudup), who recruits agent Melvin Purvis (Bale) to hunt him down. Meanwhile, Dillinger falls in love with a coat-check girl, Billie Frechette (Cotillard), and convinces her to join him on the lam.
Director and co-writer Michael Mann has often shown a passion for the inner workings of criminals and cops and their shared devotion to duty and honor (Heat, Collateral). But his last film, Miami Vice, illustrated the limits of this approach, which often favours brilliantly choreographed action scenes and terse tough-guy dialogue over resonant characters – especially females, who usually serve as romantic playthings.
Public Enemies doesn’t entirely correct that imbalance, but this lengthy film engrosses because Mann does delve a little deeper into his characters’ psychology.
Working from Bryan Burrough’s non-fiction book about Dillinger and the formation of the FBI, Mann, production designer Nathan Crowley and cinematographer Dante Spinotti have done a stunning job recreating the era while, at the same time, making the film feel contemporary. Much of that credit must go to Spinotti, whose glorious, handheld HD-camera images lend Public Enemies an urgency and immediacy which are a far cry from most period films.
Several members of Public Enemies’ large cast turn in strong work that adds to the story’s dramatic authenticity and drive. As Dillinger, Depp remains a bit of an enigma, conveying the thief’s arrogance and sardonic irreverence without dipping into the theatricality of his roles in Pirates Of The Caribbean or Sweeney Todd. Bale plays Purvis as a straight-arrow lawman who discovers to his horror how easy it is to cross ethical lines in order to apprehend wrongdoers. While his emotional journey seemingly echoes the U.S. government’s modern-day moral troubles ith “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the wake of 9/11, Bale makes the political commentary relatable on a personal level. As for Cotillard, she may be yet another second-fiddle love interest in a Michael Mann film, but at least her charm and steel give the role needed depth, especially with the love story growing in importance as the film reaches its conclusion.
Action connoisseurs have always adored Mann for his bravura set pieces, and Public Enemies doesn’t disappoint in this regard. Kicking off with a thrilling prison break, the film moves sleekly from sequence to sequence, finding innovative new ways to stage action scenes and wring tension from seemingly commonplace set-ups.