Public Enemies Movie Review 40

This movie is based on a book by Bryan Burrough and it revolves around the life of John Dillinger and his pals. It is directed by Michael Mann and it stars Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.

The movie begins with Dillinger(Depp) trying to break some of his friends out of prison. They shoot a prison guard in the process and Dillinger's mentor is killed. The escapees flee to a safe house and then they plan to go to Chicago to rob banks. Meanwhile, Melvin Purvis(Bale) is a special agent and he is hunting down a criminal by the name of Pretty Boy Floyd. He shoots him and kills him.(This didn't really happen that way. Floyd wasn't captured until after Dillinger's death). Purvis is promoted to lead the search for John Dillinger by J. Edgar Hoover who wants to set up the FBI at this time.

So, Dillinger is enjoying himself and he meets a woman, Billie Frechette(Marion Cotillard) and he takes her to dinner. He likes her etc and when he tells her to wait for him outside while he talks to some business associates of his, she disappears. He goes and finds her where she works and he tells her that she is with him now and that he will take care of her etc. She likes this and they become lovers.Most of the movie is about Purvis trailing Dillinger. He catches him, then loses him and he spends most of his days and nights trying to get information on him and trying to find out where he is staying. Bale does his best with the part he has been given, but I wasn't overly impressed with this movie. It has all the glamour of a 1930's film set with some great cars and sets, but there seems to be something missing.

I felt that the romantic scenes between Dillinger and his floozy could have been axed as they contributed very little to the story. This movie was all about Johnny Depp and even he couldn't make it better than it is. Don't get me wrong, there are some great actors and scenes in this film, but it was too long and some parts didn't fit in. Marion Cotillard has to be one of the worst actresses out there and I found that I didn't like her character at all. She just didn't fit the part and that really took its toll on the movie. The others did their best and the ending was very good. Johnny Depp has a lot of talent and he was good in the part despite the drawn out tale. A lot of the story isn't factual either which is a shame because there was no need to change so much of the real story. The ending comes when Dillinger is shot down on a street after coming out of a movie. This part of the movie was good, but then they ruin it by sticking in some story about Dillinger's last words to his floozy. That never happened. Sometimes these movies can be too long and that leads to boredom of the watcher. If they cut out a lot of meaningless scenes, it would be better.

So, to sum it up, Depp and Bale were good in their parts, but the movie was mediocre. Cotillard was woeful and I disliked her in this film. I would have to give this one a 6/10 and a lot of that is because of Depp and Bale....