Public Enemies: The Four Failures

As a fan of many Michael Mann movies, as well as the Crime Story series, I wanted to like Public Enemies. Any of the FourFailures below could, in fact, be strengths, in another movie. So these are not meant to suggest that all movies with these features are failures, but rather they are failures in this particular movie:

1. The Expected. The movie is full of the Expected, but doesn't seem aware of it. Tough to overcome the fact that at some point the audience ceases to be forgiving of the so many piled-up re-worked set-pieces just because it's a Johnny Depp, etc. etc. At some point, truth will out. The movie must stand or fall on its own merits, not because it's a Michael Mann film, or a Johnny Depp picture. Worst instance: the race in Florida, where Dillinger's girlfriend Billie gets mad because she has been reminded Dillinger might die, and he simply says something to her like "Don't worry baby, the world's ours, I'm lookin' to the future" (I only saw it once and didn't take notes so that's not a real quote) and then suddenly she's happy again and seems suddenly to have forgotten that just a few seconds ago she was REALLY UPSET that he might die because he's the FBI's most wanted, etc. etc. etc.

2. Digital. Why digital, which is still a technology that calls attention to itself as a technology? It is not yet "invisible" and so still is loaded and over-coded with meanings that will, someday, be shed as the technology replaces analog as natural, inevitable. The choice--like the film--is incoherent. At times, it seems as if Mann is going for a sort of raw, Dogme 95 look, with the shaky camera, the occasional fast zoom. But these are sporadic, and mostly unmotivated. 

3. Too many characters. This criticism seems as absurd as Emperor Joseph's criticism of Mozart in Amadeus as writing music with "too many notes." On its face, this is a silly criticism. But at some point, the movie becomes not much more than groups of pasty-faced guys running around shooting each other, with little dramatic effect. There are simply TOO MANY of them. 

4. The Non-Angle: What is the movie about? What angle does it take? What is its general stance toward the subject matter? Some incoherent movies (thank you Robin Wood) are amazingly good, such as Taxi Driver or Dressed to Kill. But not Public Enemies (and who can deny that this is a very dull name for a film?) It doesn't really seem to be about Dillinger, who comes across as no more talented, brave, psychotic, greedy, maladjusted, or bored with conventional life as any of the other characters (with the exception of Baby Face Nelson). It doesn't seem to be about the so-called "fine line" between the good guys and the bad guys (a tired old approach to crime movies if ever there was one). It doesn't seem to be about how the Depression created the atmosphere for a sort of criminal that by-passed Capitalism and Communism and Fascism to accumulate wealth and fame. The movie sort of seems to be about Celebrity, but only in a few scenes. And it sort of seems to be the coming irrelevance of bank robbery in a era of electronic communication, but again, only in a few underdeveloped scenes.

I had to write this fairly quickly, before I completely forgot about this movie.

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