150 Word Review: 'Public Enemies' (2009)
Top of the world
I am not a fan of Johnny Depp’s acting. But he abandons his customary prosthetics and make-up and allows his classic Hollywood good looks do all the work in Michael Mann’s underrated, big-budget Depression-era gangster thriller Public Enemies. This is probably one of Mann’s less celebrated movies, and it’s certainly not one of his most memorable. But it is real meat-and-potatoes filmmaking: an old-fashioned gangster flick à la White Heat (1949) or Little Caesar (1931), only with modern body counts.
Depp is John Dillinger, gentleman bank robber, and while Mann gives us what we want—Tommy guns blaring, bank heists executed with precision—this is ultimately a love story. A romance between a Robin Hood and Marion Cotillard’s Billie Frechette, a coatroom girl who catches the eye of America’s Public Enemy No. 1. Christian Bale also stars as real-life FBI agent Melvin Purvis, who is more of an hitman than a lawman.