Directed by: Michael Mann
Written By: Ronan Bennett & Michael Mann
Cast: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, & Marion Cotillard
Runtime: 140 min
Rating: R
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Hindsight is 20/20, we’re told. Given the opportunity to look back on past mistakes, we can see the error of our ways. What we did wrong and how to never do it wrong again. As the credits rolled on my second viewing of Michael Mann’s (Heat, Collateral, Ali) latest crime opus, I realized I was a living, breathing example of just how clear hindsight is. Barely 24 hours prior, I found myself filled with disappointment and uncertainty. How was I watching Public Enemies, the story of John Dillinger’s (Johnny Depp) meteoric rise and fall from bank robber stardom and the FBI agent who made it happen, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), and not frothing at my cinematic mouth? How was I turned off by Mann’s insistence on lingering on the troubled, angst-ridden faces of his characters? How could I question the casting of Marion Cotillard as Dillinger’s gang moll, Billie Frechette? So many questions, but only one answer: I was wrong.

Were my eyes blurry? Did a stray piece of hair float across the auditorium just as the film began, with the stirring, military march of a chain gang behind the walls of Indiana State Penitentiary? Maybe that’s why I missed the command, the control, the confidence bordering on arrogance, that Depp infused into Dillinger, a 30s bank robber who fancied himself a modern-day, celebrity Robin Hood. This might sound trite, but Dillinger is a role Depp was born to play. His pale skin, the hang of his hair, the evil lurking in the dark circles under his eyes, his gait – Depp feels like Dillinger should feel; acts how he should act; blinks when he should blink; grins when he should grin. Most importantly, Depp looks like Dillinger should look.

In fact, Mann’s entire film looks like it should look. This is the 1930s as you would have seen it, walking down a Chicago street in the 1930s – without sepia-toned-lenses or CGI-extended backgrounds. Since his masterpiece Collateral, Mann has been experimenting and perfecting HD video photography. There were murmurs that this film would expose HD for the student film-looking, too-crisp sham that it is. My voice was one of these murmurs. That’s me being wrong again. With Public Enemies, we finally have a period piece that is completely immersive. Shot in such stunning clarity, and with Mann’s typical attention to bruising detail in shootouts and character nuances, never once do we feel like we’re watching a film. We feel like we’re seeing these robberies and late-night schemes live, in living color. On the big screen, HD photography, devoid of film stock’s grain, turns the silver screen into the clear window it was meant to be. We truly feel like voyeurs; snitches hidden in the walls of Dillinger’s hideouts, spying on his every move and reporting to Purvis. Mann, spending considerably more time in daylight than he did in Collateral or Miami Vice, has made his most beautiful film to date.

Perhaps I should have dug in my ear canal before I sat down for my first viewing. I complained that the sound design was messy, uneven. Thank God for q-tips. The second time around, my ears rang from the rat-a-tat of early 20th century weaponry. The gunfights here, while less aurally powerful than Heat’s legendary shootout and Miami Vice’s visceral, Jose Yero-obliterating finale, still thump with an energy and importance that only Mann can create. His action set pieces work not because they decimate Dolby – we’ve got plenty of robots to do that. No, they’re so effective, so emotionally demanding, because he makes us care about the bodies soon to be buffeted by bullets. Working almost exclusively in revealing close-ups and claustrophobic shot-reverse-shot progression, Mann shows us every creased inch of his characters’ faces. In these facial caverns, not expository dialogue or slow-mo flashbacks, lies their backstory. The pain of prior misfortunes takes up residence in their bodies and souls. To try to escape it is to try to escape oneself. This is the tragedy of all of Mann’s criminal characters, and even Ali: they are what they are—robbers, hired killers, undercover agents, immense celebrities—and can be nothing else. They are burdened because of it.

Thankfully, my burden has been lifted. I gave myself a night to recharge and come back to my senses. With fresh eyes, ears, and mind, I was able to fully and clearly take in a master filmmaker at work. I was able to soak up the subtlety of the dialogue in Ronan Bennett and Mann & Ann Biderman’s script. A stellar supporting cast of actors with names you may not know, faces you’ll definitely recognize, and performances you won’t forget. The Oscar-caliber attention-to-period-detail layered in the art direction, costuming, and set design, if you can even call these sets. Shooting in some of the actual locations where Dillinger ate, slept, and plotted, Public Enemies is the Civil War reenactment of gangster films. We are not voyeurs in cinema seats, but bystanders behind Indiana bars and in Wisconsin woods. The poor souls close enough to feel the blowback from Purvis’ gun and the rumble of a Ford V8 fleeing from a newly-empty bank. This is as real, as gritty, as visceral, a crime drama as you’ll see this decade.

And boy, am I glad I saw it twice.

Clarence Hammond
© Cinephile Magazine, 2009