Public Enemies

Sandra and I watched Public Enemies this week. It was pretty alright. I wouldn’t call it really good or anything, but it wasn’t bad either. It was one of those movies that I enjoyed watching, and then when it was over I went “Okay, sure” and then promptly forgot most of it. Johnny Depp was good, and it was nice to see someone playing 30s gangster type character without acting like every goddamned 30s style gangster we’ve ever seen in a movie. In the end, basically I felt like I knew more about John Dillinger than I ever did before, and I’m still not any more or less interested in him than I was before I saw the movie.

One aspect of the movie that I enjoyed, and I’d like to see a little more about, was how the depression era desperation in the general public lent itself to creating these guys. That’s somewhat interesting to me. That the atmosphere and circumstances were just right to allow for guys like John Dillinger to exist and, for the most part, get away with what they did. I felt they did a good job of keeping the portrayal of the character fairly ambivalent. He was likable, in that he’s a charming guy and is good at what he does, but I never felt like the movie wanted me to particularly sympathize with him. Nor did you particularly want him to fail. It was more like just watching events unfold as they ultimately will and being invested in the trip itself rather than the outcome of it.

Because it was based on a true story, and I had a fairly basic knowledge of the major events in the story, there was a bit of a ticking clock element. I knew that at some point he was going to have to go to the movies, and that that would signal the end of the movie. That was a little frustrating. But that’s the way it goes in biographies. Kind of like you know that when Jim Morrison ships off to Paris, we’re just about done with The Doors movie. But whatever. There was a lot of stuff in there that I didn’t know, and it was interesting enough.

One thing that really threw me off was that, for some reason, they kept cutting to these weird handheld video shots. And not even like, super high def movie camera handheld shots, but these shaky grainy Cloverfield shots. It’s like all of a sudden, and for no apparent reason, we’re watching an episode of Cops or something. I didn’t understand the purpose of these shots or what Michael Mann was going for, and it completely took me out of the movie. Maybe it went over my head or something.

Along with waiting the entire movie for Dillinger’s inevitable trip to the movies, I also found myself waiting for a reference to his legendary giant cock. There was only one reference (where it was suggested that his dick was named Prince Albert) and it was fleeting and excusable. Part of me wanted to just let that whole thing go, considering that most anyone with even the slightest interest in urban legends and macabre factoids agrees that the whole thing is bullshit, based on one photograph with a strategically angled rigor mortised arm under a sheet. It seems to me that if they genuinely wanted to give the movie as much factual base as they could, they would have skipped that whole silly bit entirely. But whatever. I imagine it was something that they went back and forth on a fair bit.

Also, I have to say, and it bums me out to admit it, but I’m having a hard time watching Christian Bale in movies anymore. He’s a good actor, but anymore I can’t disassociate myself from his public image. It would have been easier if it had JUST been that stupid recording of him blowing up at the tweaker cinematographer, but it’s more than that. It’s everything combined. It’s his whole deal. It’s overshadowed him as an actor. The recording I could let slide, but combine that with the incident with his wife/girlfriend and mother, and combine that with most interviews I’ve ever read with him, I’m just at the point now when I think “Look at this asshole” when I see him on screen. I really didn’t want that to happen, and it’s not really fair to the other actors, and to him as an actor, but that’s what’s happened. I think Christian Bale and I are done professionally.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, as per usual, I didn’t even recognize Billy Cruddup as J. Edger Hoover. It’s weird. I’ve seen him in so many movies, and he’s one of those actors that I just can never put his face to his name. I don’t know why. It has to be a credit to his abilities as an actor, because I always just see him as the character he’s playing. He disappears. I appreciate that I lot. I don’t know how many times I’ve looked at the credits wondering “Who was that guy who played so-and-so?” and it’s turned out to be Billy Cruddup.

One thing I really liked in this movie was the gunshots. Specifically, the sound of them. Far too often in movies, I’m let down by gunfights. Anyone who has ever discharged a firearm knows, guns are fucking LOUD. Like, stupid loud. All too often I’m let down by movie gun fights. I tend to feel like all of a sudden I’m watching Starsky and Hutch, and the actors are shooting cap pistols. But in this movie they did it right. The guns are loud and you feel each shot in your bones and the fillings in your teeth. The shots have consequence. They’re solid and lethal. I really enjoyed that aspect of the movie, and I hope that other filmmakers take notice and start making gun fights more realistic. 

The last thing I’m going to point out, and it’s really more of a nit-picky movie pet peeve of mine, is that there was a lot of vintage (obviously) stuff used in the movies. But the problem is that it all looked OLD in the time that the stuff was supposed to be new. It seems really stupid to me to have a rack full of 1930s magazines that look like they’re 70 years old. The two things I really noticed was one shot where they’re checking into a hotel or something, and over a chick’s shoulders is a magazines, and they all looked old. It seems to stupid to me to use actual period props and set decoration when they could have just as easily (probably even easier) made up fake ones that look real. A rack full of magazines in 1932 would be full of NEW magazines from 1932. There was another shot that was a close up of Christian Bale lighting a match from a box of matches, and the box of matches looked all old and yellowed and worn. Yes, it looked like it was a genuine 1930s box of matches (on account of I’m an expert on depression era smoking accessories) but they looked like they’d been sitting in someone’s attic for seventy years. WTF? Does this seem really obvious to other people besides me or what? And if you’re watching a 1930s movie in the 1930s, would it look all scratched up and old? Wouldn’t it be a nice, fresh new print?

Anyway… In the end, it was an enjoyable movie that I would recommend, but it’s not one that I feel the need to ever watch again. It was just one of those enjoyable but disposable movies.

Oh, and for the record, Baby Face Nelson sure was a dickhead.