I have probably said on more than one occassion that I am a big Johnny Depp fan. He is a very good actor and can be quite versatile with the array of characters he has portrayed. From a swashbuckling pirate, to a kooky chocolatier, to a misunderstood fairy tale, Johnny Depp has pushed his acting career to its limits and has come out on top.
So, naturally I thought Public Enemies would be a great movie. Depp stars as John Dillinger. A man in the early 30’s who escaped jail and robbed several banks across the nation. It was because of John Dillinger that it is now considered a federal crime if two separate crimes are committed in two separate states. Dillinger really doesn’t stand out in history, I guess. He was one of many bank robbers in his day. I guess being able to clear a bank in under 2 minutes and not be caught for several years is quite an accomplishment.
My boyfriend and I decided to make a date of it earlier today and go see the movie in theatres. The movie started off good enough. We have Dillinger in handcuffs brough to a jailhouse (I think it was Cook County Jail) by another man. Meanwhile, several prisoners had guns smuggled into the house and they planned a break out. A few minutes go by and you realize that Dillinger has come to break out his crew in order to get back to robbing banks. It is an awesome first scene. You get a great fun fight between the police and Dillinger’s crew as they are escaping. And I’m not talking about little handguns either. This is the 30’s, where every police man had a rifle and every con had a semi-automatic.
The best parts of the entire movie were these shoot outs. No music is played in the background. It’s just the sounds of guns, voices, screams, and hits. Sadly, these were the only good parts of the film.
The story line was not so great. Christian Bale portrays Special Agent Melvin Purvis, the man who ultimately caught and killed Dillinger. All I could gather about Agent Purvis is that he’s a hot shot agent waiting for his break. He gets thrown the Dillinger case, but yet Dillinger evaded arrest several times before Purvis caught him at a movie theatre.
Character development doesn’t even exist for any of the characters other than Dillinger. He’s the character of most interest, yes, but all these other characters are introduced and their stories are sort of left hanging. I couldn’t help but flashback to when I saw the Black Dahlia in theatres. I remember it, but I can’t tell you what it was about. It’s the same with Public Enemies. I can’t really tell you what happened that you couldn’t pick up from a commercial trailor.
I was disappointed with this movie. The gun scenes were pretty awesome, but took away from the story line, which was non-existant from the beginning any way. I guess, the gun scenes could have saved the movie, if it weren’t over 2 hours long. Subtract a few characters that aren’t important, build the stories of those that are, and shorten the film by at least 30 minutes the film might not have been a complete waste of time and money.
Johnny Depp started off with some so-so movies such as What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Blow, but sky rocketed (in my opinion) with Edward Scissorhands. Most of his movies past that were really good and critically acclaimed. However, Public Enemies reverts back to his early films. All in all, I remain unimpressed with Public Enemies and cannot wait to see what other films Johnny Depp will persue. I’m sure the next one will be a lot better.
