Showing posts with label Public Enemies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Public Enemies. Show all posts
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Public Enemies Discussion
Jordan and Sam discuss Public Enemies, the movie that robbed us of our high expectations, and left the treasure that could have been lying behind in the vault.
Sam's Review: Public Enemies
Michael Mann’s newest film Public Enemies was one of my most anticipated movies for this summer. Maybe that’s why it let me down so much. It had had all the makings of a great summer flick: bank robberies, guns, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. But it just did not deliver on so many levels.
The film chronicles the life (well the bank robbing part) of the notorious bank-robber, John Dillinger (Depp). We see how he breaks out of prison (twice!) and how he robs banks and so on and so forth. The other side of the coin to this movie is following Melvin Purvis, the man given the task of tracking down Dillinger, by any means necessary. It is important that he get Dillinger to maintain the reputation of this new thing called the FBI run by J. Edgar Hoover (played like a radio-show actor by Billy Crudup aka walking talking blue penis, he also played Dr Manhattan). We also get a peek into Dillinger’s private life in his relationship with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard).
There’s a great story here and certainly a great cast but the movie was just not executed well. I’m going to lay the blame on Mann for this one. I thought the pacing of the film was too slow for a movie that seems like it should be moving a mile a minute, at least that is how it was being promoted. I also did not like Mann’s digital camera shake-fest. It worked quite well in his 2004 movie, Collateral. But the 1930’s should not be seen through the eyes of a shaky camcorder. The digital shots and shakiness took me out of the viewing experience and made think about what camera he was using and how he was shaking the thing like a baby that won’t be quite.
I found the movie to be at times very boring. I almost dozed off in the middle there, and there were a few checks of the watch. Mann shows us what we already know and what we’ve already seen in bank heist movies. Dillinger’s fame is only briefly mentioned and as to why he’s so famous seems to be explained in one throw-away line (something about giving back the people’s money at the bank). I want to know more about Dillinger the person. How’d he get so damn good? Where does he come from (this is obviously mentioned also in one quick line, but I mean how did he get to be this way).
It wasn’t all bad though. The acting was strong in the film, but that’s what you’d expect with this cast. Beside the big three mentioned earlier the cast sported people like Giovanni Ribisi, Domenick Lombardozzi (Wire!), Stephen Dorff, and Lilli Taylor (Six Feet Under!).
While I don’t think Mann’s style meshed well with this film, he is certainly a talented director. It came in bits of flashes throughout the film with good shots coming here and there. What impressed me the most was probably the last 10-15 minutes of the film which I thought were the strongest. Without revealing any spoilers, it had the emotion, and drama the rest of the film could have used. In the end though, this was just a mediocre bank-robbery movie where Dillinger’s name could have been interchanged with any fictional character’s name and it would have been basically unrecognizable. This was my first real disappointment of the summer.
C
The film chronicles the life (well the bank robbing part) of the notorious bank-robber, John Dillinger (Depp). We see how he breaks out of prison (twice!) and how he robs banks and so on and so forth. The other side of the coin to this movie is following Melvin Purvis, the man given the task of tracking down Dillinger, by any means necessary. It is important that he get Dillinger to maintain the reputation of this new thing called the FBI run by J. Edgar Hoover (played like a radio-show actor by Billy Crudup aka walking talking blue penis, he also played Dr Manhattan). We also get a peek into Dillinger’s private life in his relationship with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard).
There’s a great story here and certainly a great cast but the movie was just not executed well. I’m going to lay the blame on Mann for this one. I thought the pacing of the film was too slow for a movie that seems like it should be moving a mile a minute, at least that is how it was being promoted. I also did not like Mann’s digital camera shake-fest. It worked quite well in his 2004 movie, Collateral. But the 1930’s should not be seen through the eyes of a shaky camcorder. The digital shots and shakiness took me out of the viewing experience and made think about what camera he was using and how he was shaking the thing like a baby that won’t be quite.
I found the movie to be at times very boring. I almost dozed off in the middle there, and there were a few checks of the watch. Mann shows us what we already know and what we’ve already seen in bank heist movies. Dillinger’s fame is only briefly mentioned and as to why he’s so famous seems to be explained in one throw-away line (something about giving back the people’s money at the bank). I want to know more about Dillinger the person. How’d he get so damn good? Where does he come from (this is obviously mentioned also in one quick line, but I mean how did he get to be this way).
It wasn’t all bad though. The acting was strong in the film, but that’s what you’d expect with this cast. Beside the big three mentioned earlier the cast sported people like Giovanni Ribisi, Domenick Lombardozzi (Wire!), Stephen Dorff, and Lilli Taylor (Six Feet Under!).
While I don’t think Mann’s style meshed well with this film, he is certainly a talented director. It came in bits of flashes throughout the film with good shots coming here and there. What impressed me the most was probably the last 10-15 minutes of the film which I thought were the strongest. Without revealing any spoilers, it had the emotion, and drama the rest of the film could have used. In the end though, this was just a mediocre bank-robbery movie where Dillinger’s name could have been interchanged with any fictional character’s name and it would have been basically unrecognizable. This was my first real disappointment of the summer.
C
Jordan’s Review: Public Enemies:
The idea of watching one of America’s most successful and infamous bank robbers of all time engage in a game of cat and mouse with the fledgling F.B.I. sounds to me like a movie idea with almost limitless potential for success. Throw in some acting heavyweights like Christian Bale, Johnny Depp, and Marion Cotillard, and Public Enemies was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. So it is with a heavy heart that I report most of that anticipation went to waste.
I’ll start with the good stuff: the film was shot on digital, which makes the cinematography scintillating in every action scene and stunning in its moments of subtlety. Of course, the price audience’s pay for handheld digital is the occasional shaky camera, but this effect is minimalized here and on the whole, the cinematography is stunning. Of course it doesn’t say much for a movie when its greatest point is the cinematography, but this truly is a beautiful film to watch.
Another high point to be found is in some very colorful supporting performances. Billy Crudup is excellent as J. Edgar Hoover. He is simultaneously fascinating, hilarious, and a little revolting, and I found myself wishing the movie was more about his rise than Dillinger’s eventual fall. Stephen Graham is also very good as George “Baby Face” Nelson, nailing the accent and the manic delusions of grandeur while also having fun with the role. If more of the actors in the movie had followed Graham’s lead, the results would have been a sight to be seen. Finally, Johnny Depp (who did seem to be following Graham’s lead and enjoying the role) plays Dillinger as an incredibly charming figure—darkly humorous with a mischievous grin always flickering at the side of his lips. He doesn’t always have a lot to work with, but Depp works the angles of the role like the champ he is, bringing humor, and moral relativity to a film that seemed destined to avoid both.
The largest flaw with the film seems to come from the script, which tackles what is arguable the greatest cat and mouse game of all time like it was just another episode of a standard police procedural. When Melvin Purvis (portrayed here by Christian Bale) was actually chasing John Dillinger across the Midwest, his pursuit was powered by new methods of investigation and he was a member of the brand new F.B.I. so it’s curious why the scriptwriters chose to make the pursuit seem like old hat. Bale feels like he’s sleep walking through a majority of the movie, but that is not particularly his fault—the screenplay took a conflicted, later suicidal character and turned him into a one dimensional law enforcer. Where Purvis should have been one of the film’s bright spots—conflicted, thrown into a spotlight he didn’t seek and deadest on catching a man while constantly unsure if he was pushing things to far—he was instead its low point, an a stone faced character who emoted less than the room he was standing in.
Cotillard was solid as Billie Frechette, Dillinger’s lover, yet there was never any chemistry between she and Depp. When she was not by his side (as in her interrogation scene) she was often stellar, yet when the two were together, they fell flat, a problem when the film spends much of its running time exploring their relationship.
I’ll end with another positive point: there were a few very solid action sequences peppered between the underwhelming majority of the movie, and the shootout in the Wisconsin woods was in fact excellent. The film often showed flashes of brilliance, but they were sadly far too fleeting, and the movie was left standing in the shadow of the film that could have been.
Grade: C+
I’ll start with the good stuff: the film was shot on digital, which makes the cinematography scintillating in every action scene and stunning in its moments of subtlety. Of course, the price audience’s pay for handheld digital is the occasional shaky camera, but this effect is minimalized here and on the whole, the cinematography is stunning. Of course it doesn’t say much for a movie when its greatest point is the cinematography, but this truly is a beautiful film to watch.
Another high point to be found is in some very colorful supporting performances. Billy Crudup is excellent as J. Edgar Hoover. He is simultaneously fascinating, hilarious, and a little revolting, and I found myself wishing the movie was more about his rise than Dillinger’s eventual fall. Stephen Graham is also very good as George “Baby Face” Nelson, nailing the accent and the manic delusions of grandeur while also having fun with the role. If more of the actors in the movie had followed Graham’s lead, the results would have been a sight to be seen. Finally, Johnny Depp (who did seem to be following Graham’s lead and enjoying the role) plays Dillinger as an incredibly charming figure—darkly humorous with a mischievous grin always flickering at the side of his lips. He doesn’t always have a lot to work with, but Depp works the angles of the role like the champ he is, bringing humor, and moral relativity to a film that seemed destined to avoid both.
The largest flaw with the film seems to come from the script, which tackles what is arguable the greatest cat and mouse game of all time like it was just another episode of a standard police procedural. When Melvin Purvis (portrayed here by Christian Bale) was actually chasing John Dillinger across the Midwest, his pursuit was powered by new methods of investigation and he was a member of the brand new F.B.I. so it’s curious why the scriptwriters chose to make the pursuit seem like old hat. Bale feels like he’s sleep walking through a majority of the movie, but that is not particularly his fault—the screenplay took a conflicted, later suicidal character and turned him into a one dimensional law enforcer. Where Purvis should have been one of the film’s bright spots—conflicted, thrown into a spotlight he didn’t seek and deadest on catching a man while constantly unsure if he was pushing things to far—he was instead its low point, an a stone faced character who emoted less than the room he was standing in.
Cotillard was solid as Billie Frechette, Dillinger’s lover, yet there was never any chemistry between she and Depp. When she was not by his side (as in her interrogation scene) she was often stellar, yet when the two were together, they fell flat, a problem when the film spends much of its running time exploring their relationship.
I’ll end with another positive point: there were a few very solid action sequences peppered between the underwhelming majority of the movie, and the shootout in the Wisconsin woods was in fact excellent. The film often showed flashes of brilliance, but they were sadly far too fleeting, and the movie was left standing in the shadow of the film that could have been.
Grade: C+
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