Public Enemies -- Movie Review
by Nicolas Leobold
To put it bluntly, Public Enemies is a mediocre film.
After his 2000’s disaster Collateral, Michael Mann has failed again to capture the magic and power of his 1990’s crime blockbuster masterpiece, Heat.
Public Enemies fails on many levels. Throughout the film, the actors dialogue on the soundtrack in often garbled, muffled and unintelligible. Christian Bale as the tough FBI agent Melvin Purvis goes through the entire film trying to pull off some type of tough-guy spoken accent that is supposed to be either Southern, Midwesterner, Chicago-tough or D.C. officer-bureaucratic, but his performance and speaking quality is so bad I can’t tell which it is. Bale’s failed accent attempt renders his entire performance throughout the film pathetically bad. Also, Bale likes to punctuate his powerful lines with a stony silent statue pose after all his big monologues, in which he freezes in front of the filming camera and tries to look tough and menacing but only manages to look stupid and laughable.
The film simply fails to capture the type of intense drama and captivating performances and production values that were so addictively pleasurable in Heat.
There is no aesthetic tension between two compelling and conflicting forces like between Heat’s Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino and the gangsters versus the police in Heat.
Public Enemies is simply not a very dramatic and exciting movie.
The music of the film can’t decide between playing 1930’s depression-era folk songs, 1930’s jazz and roaring 30’s and love ballads, or an attempt at an atmospheric musical soundtrack. The film in fact does not have any of the atmosphere and palpable beauty of Heat--not even close. There is also zero character development from the screenplay. You never understand any of the motivations, thinking and personalities of the characters, not even of John Dillinger and his girlfriend, as handsome an actor as Johnny Depp is, as opposed to in Heat, where the character development began from the very first minutes and continued through to the film’s climax. Also, the writers can’t decide whether they want to portray the FBI agents as corrupt “bad cops” or honorable “career officers”. One particularly stupid segment has a fattish FBI agent manhandling and beating Dillinger’s girlfriend during an interrogation, when a superior comes in and slams him against the wall, with Bale carrying her out heroically. The scene wasn’t heroic, it was ridiculously pretentious and fake. Are these FBI agents thugs or professionals, can’t the writers and director decide?
The photography is pretty ordinary throughout the whole 2 ½ hours, the one exception being a nicely filmed segment at a 30’s thoroughbred racetrack. The first quarter of the film is very weak, with the hard-to-follow dialogue and no substantive beginning and transitions. From the middle to the end it gets a wee bit stronger, but it is a lame, insignificant improvement.
Basically, Public Enemies is a big disappointment and not worthy of being watched a second time, not even close, whereas I have seen Heat more than 30 or 40 times, could easily watch it another 40 times, and would jump at the chance to see it again on the big screen.
To put it bluntly, Public Enemies is a mediocre film.
After his 2000’s disaster Collateral, Michael Mann has failed again to capture the magic and power of his 1990’s crime blockbuster masterpiece, Heat.
Public Enemies fails on many levels. Throughout the film, the actors dialogue on the soundtrack in often garbled, muffled and unintelligible. Christian Bale as the tough FBI agent Melvin Purvis goes through the entire film trying to pull off some type of tough-guy spoken accent that is supposed to be either Southern, Midwesterner, Chicago-tough or D.C. officer-bureaucratic, but his performance and speaking quality is so bad I can’t tell which it is. Bale’s failed accent attempt renders his entire performance throughout the film pathetically bad. Also, Bale likes to punctuate his powerful lines with a stony silent statue pose after all his big monologues, in which he freezes in front of the filming camera and tries to look tough and menacing but only manages to look stupid and laughable.
The film simply fails to capture the type of intense drama and captivating performances and production values that were so addictively pleasurable in Heat.
There is no aesthetic tension between two compelling and conflicting forces like between Heat’s Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino and the gangsters versus the police in Heat.
Public Enemies is simply not a very dramatic and exciting movie.
The music of the film can’t decide between playing 1930’s depression-era folk songs, 1930’s jazz and roaring 30’s and love ballads, or an attempt at an atmospheric musical soundtrack. The film in fact does not have any of the atmosphere and palpable beauty of Heat--not even close. There is also zero character development from the screenplay. You never understand any of the motivations, thinking and personalities of the characters, not even of John Dillinger and his girlfriend, as handsome an actor as Johnny Depp is, as opposed to in Heat, where the character development began from the very first minutes and continued through to the film’s climax. Also, the writers can’t decide whether they want to portray the FBI agents as corrupt “bad cops” or honorable “career officers”. One particularly stupid segment has a fattish FBI agent manhandling and beating Dillinger’s girlfriend during an interrogation, when a superior comes in and slams him against the wall, with Bale carrying her out heroically. The scene wasn’t heroic, it was ridiculously pretentious and fake. Are these FBI agents thugs or professionals, can’t the writers and director decide?
The photography is pretty ordinary throughout the whole 2 ½ hours, the one exception being a nicely filmed segment at a 30’s thoroughbred racetrack. The first quarter of the film is very weak, with the hard-to-follow dialogue and no substantive beginning and transitions. From the middle to the end it gets a wee bit stronger, but it is a lame, insignificant improvement.
Basically, Public Enemies is a big disappointment and not worthy of being watched a second time, not even close, whereas I have seen Heat more than 30 or 40 times, could easily watch it another 40 times, and would jump at the chance to see it again on the big screen.
No comments:
Post a Comment