Today I saw Public Enemies and my first impression was, "Holy crap a movie where Johnny Depp doesn't say 'savvy' and Christian Bale doesn't borrow the devil's voice!". My second impression was difficult to decipher. Public Enemies is the story of Melvin Purvis (Johnny Depp), an investigator for the newly developed Bureau of Investigation, and his attempts to stop America's most wanted criminal, John Dillinger. The film is an adaptation of Bryan Burrough's non-fiction book Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34.
Directed by Michael Mann, known for mediocre films like the 2006 adaptation of Miami Vice, Public Enemies is a well constructed film, with an excellent crew of actors. Visually, the film had no problems pulling me in and making me believe it was the 1930's. Depp and Bale play both of their characters convincingly enough and in terms of casting I have no complaints.
In fact, given a couple of good looking shootouts, an excellent soundtrack, and a strong cast you'd think this would be a simple review.... Sadly, you'd be mistaken.
Public Enemies doesn't fall fate to any of the obvious shortcomings I would normally complain about. Honestly, it's not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. However, I would argue that it commits the worst sin a movie can commit. It's forgettable.
Yes for all normal categories I grade a movie on, Public Enemies is a good movie, possibly even great. However, the question that matters is the one where I ask myself whether I'd buy it on DVD, or purposely watch it again. Sadly the movie is so forgettable I doubt I'll remember to make that decision.
Despite the quality of the product, it just seems to go through the motions. I don't know if this was an attempt to stay realistic and true to the real story, or an attempt to keep the viewer securely believing it's 1933, but it left no impression whatsoever. The plot was simple and obvious. This was one of those times I wish that they had taken some of those "liberties" Hollywood is so well known for taking on book adaptations. At the end it was "introduce characters, bad guy does bad things, good guy makes attempts to stop bad guy, bad guy evades, good guy stops bad guy". There were no twists or turns and aside from a brilliantly well crafted scene involving John Dillinger at a stop light, no memorable suspense. The ending left me bored and disappointing, like a little boy hoping for a train set on Christmas day that got socks.
All things considered, Public Enemies was well crafted and had all the elements of a great movie, except the one that mattered, entertainment.
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