Review Public Enemies

When asked by a friend, what do I see in a movie before I decide to actually see it? Well, when I was in high school, of course the genre is the main factor of consideration. After that, I began to lurk at the actors starring the movie, because some actors are either just plain good (e.g. Robert De Niro) or he/she always pick to star in good movies despite of his/her average not-bad-but-not-too-impressive-either acting (e.g. Leo Dicaprio). Now, I may add another account, the director of the film. We sometimes or even always forget that the director holds the greatest amount of responsibility to make a movie a successful one.

There are a lot of great directors in Hollywood. Unfortunately Michael Mann albeit is a good filmmaker, is not one of them. He is a veteran cineaste whose body of work includes high profile films such as Heat (1995) and The Insider (1999). Michael’s most recognizable trademark is that his films always focus on two main male characters conflicting to each other, such as Heat (Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro), The Insider (Al Pacino and Russell Crowe), and his 2006 feature Miami Vice (Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell). Now, I have not seen the latter, but it was not well-reviewed by critics and fans alike so it kind of turned me off.

Michael is back with his latest feature entitled “Public Enemies”, rendezvousing two of the hottest stars in Hollywood right now, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. The latter is more likely a reason why I decide to see it in theatre. It turned out that it was a bad decision. “Public Enemies” is a chaos that should have been the other way around. It is a complete misopportunity for Mann and all crews that are involved in this project. The high profile of Bale and Depp did not help one bit to conceal the movie’s strike of bad plot from the second half of the movie to the end. As it opened, the movie was so promising depicting John Dillinger (Depp) virtuoso escape scene from jail. I was convinced that he will be the main character driving this story firmly and enticingly. But guess what, as soon as this character met with a woman played by Marion Cottilard, and he fell head over heel in love with her, the note strikes on a very wrong chord.

Of course I don’t oppose movie romance in fact I enjoy it when it is true and in the right context, but when a movie mixes romance with gangster then you will hear a false note. From that point on, I knew it that Dillinger’s sentimental affection for the girl will be the death of him. Christian Bale’s presence is not really a presence as I felt that his attachment in this film is ironically a detachment of the FBI agent character he is playing, Melvin Purvis. It was as if he was from another movie, and at no point in this movie do I ever really care for his character. There was no strong bound or sense of strong conflict between the two actors like the usual showcase, Mann had successfully performed on his previous films I mentioned above. At the end of the day I do not know which party should I root for, because by the time I still patiently waiting for that affection, the end credit is already rolled.

The movie occasionally preoccupies the audiences with a very noisy and common place gunshot sound with crispy sound effect that was kind of a requirement for any typical gangster movie violence. I admire the effort, but to me it was merely a cheap trick to distract the audience from telling a real good story with good plot. Michael Mann was a fine director, as noted from his previous achievement. Too bad this time, instead of raising the bar, he’s just plummeting his own reputation maybe because he did not have enough preparation when making this film. He did not invest more time to dig a gamut of potential possibilities that this movie truly had.

If you haven’t seen this movie in theatre, spare your time and money and rent it later or better yet rent other movies this very film is trying so hard to emulate and has unsuccessfully done so. If you long to see a real gangster movie, then go and rent the best gangster movie ever made, Goodfellas (1990). If you want to have nostalgic moments with life and crime at the depression era, go and rent Road to Perdition (2002). If you want to see that pretty face Johnny spreading his charm, rent Finding Neverland (2003). If you want to see Michael Mann’s best work yet, please go and rent Heat (1995). And if you want to see Christian Bale’s endeavor fighting misdemeanor mad men and injustice, please go watch again last year’s biggest hit: The Dark Knight. That is all because you won’t find any of those in Public Enemies.

“Public Enemies,” A Universal Pictures release, is rated R, for Gangster Violence and some language. Running time: 130 minutes. Two stars out of four (C)

-Mulyadi Tjoa, Software Developer @ PT Switchlab Indonesia, Jakarta-