Public Enemies

What can I say? It was good. Just not that good.

The movie was based on the life of John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), and follows him as he breaks people out of jail, robs banks, and evades the (soon to be) FBI. Christian Bale plays Melvin Pervis, the top agent for the Bureau, who is sent to bring in Dillinger. The movie follows Dillinger’s relationship with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) from beginning to end, when they met until the time he died (1933 – 1934).

I already knew the Dillinger story when I went to see this, so there was nothing too overly interesting about the movie. They don’t really show too much of what Dillinger actually did. You see about three very short bank robberies, a shoot out at the Little Bohemia Lodge, and the rest is talk. The movie was more focused on him as a person than him as a bank robber. I really wasn’t expecting the movie to be so mellow. I think they could have done better.  Give it about five years and there will be a remake.

I hated the way they shot this movie. It looked like someone grabbed up a Sony Handycam and followed around a bunch of guys dressed up as gangsters. It was shot with the exact same camera that they used for Benjamin Button (I thought it was interesting that someone actually kept up with that information). It had this weird look to it when there was a lot of motion. Like the made for TV movies that you see with the bad camera panning. The shoot-out at the Little Bohemia was the worst. All that was missing was the director strapping a camera to the top of the gun while they were running through the woods.

Christian Bale and Johnny Depp did good work with the characters. Usually Christian Bale over acts, but he did well as Melvin Pervis. There were some lines that Depp had where I was waiting for Ricki Lake to jump out and start singing a song from Cry Baby. I think they picked the right guy to play Dillinger. Depp really played the Dillinger character how I thought it should have been done.

Overall the movie was good, just not what I was looking for. Transformers was better in my opinion. I say, wait for this to come to DVD or catch it on HBO. Not worth the price of a ticket these days, so I feel ripped off that I actually bought popcorn and a drink for this one. I needed the popcorn though; I needed something to keep me occupied since the movie felt like it would never end.

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