Public Enemies are just regular fellows

"Public Enemies", the fresh picture by Michael Mann tells us a story of John Dilliger, a famous gangster of the Great Depression. You can read more about this fellow here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dillinger

John Herbert Dillinger (June 22 1903–July 22, 1934) was a bank robber in the Midwestern United States during the early 1930s. Some considered him a dangerous criminal, while others idolized him as a modern-day Robin Hood. He was responsible for the murder of several police officers, robbed at least two dozen banks, robbed four police stations, and escaped from jail twice.^{[citation needed]} He was nicknamed the "Jackrabbit" for his graceful movements during heists, such as leaping over counters and his many narrow getaways from police.^{[citation needed]} He and his gang's exploits, along with those of other criminals of the Great Depression, such as Bonnie and Clyde and Ma Barker, dominated the attention of the American press and its readers during what is sometimes referred to as the public enemy era (1931-1935), a period which led to the further development of the modern and more sophisticated Federal Bureau of Investigation.^{[citation needed]}

After spending nearly a year running from police, and hiding out in Florida, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, he was wounded in one escape from police and returned to his father's home to heal. He soon returned to Chicago in July 1934, the site of several of his highest profile crimes. He was discovered there by police, who were informed of Dillinger's whereabouts by a prostitute. They closed in on a theater where he was watching a movie, and moved to arrest him as he left the building. He pulled a weapon and attempted to flee, but was shot three times, with a bullet through his face killing him on July 22. His crimes were sensationalized across the nation, and his numerous escapes and robberies fed many urban legends in the United States.^{[citation needed]}

But watch out! There are spoilers in Wikipedia :> as the film is in most cases very faithful to what really happened.

Little background first... I have been waiting for this movie for a couple of months. Mann doesn't make movies often but when he deliveres, I usually enjoy it. So... yes, I had pretty big expectations. And this make a lot of room for dissapointment.

I watched "Public enemies" yesterday evening (first day of screening in the U.K). What I saw was very different to what I was expecting. But that's a good thing! The movie is not a 30-ties version of "Heat". It's something else, it's new and it's refreshing.

Michael Mann experimented with the camera a lot. We have a mixture of different filming techniques, some scenes are filmed from a hand camera, some look more traditional. The whole movie has a documentary feel. This is especially visible in the scenes at the police department, giving as a feeling of watching an amateur video made by some police camera buff.
All this has a huge influence on how we receive the movie. The characters are "closer" to us, they feel like real people... they actually feel like pretty regular people with regular dreams of "getting away to some sunny place". They might just seem crazy because of the crazy times they happened to live in.

I like it that neither the gangsters nor the policemen were glorified in the movie. Although one might feel there is a slight bias towards the gangsters, but this is mainly because it is simply a movie about the gangsters, not the lawmen. As we see the gangsters way more, we're getting accustomed to their violence and we treat it as something normal, business as usual. Policemen' violence strikes more, especially when it's aimed at a woman, just because we're not used to it. But Mann is not Spielberg nor Stone. He doesn't judge, only tells stories. But those are some great stories he tells!

I also liked it that the movie doesn't try to say it all. It doesn't start with Dilliger being a kid, it completely omits the relationship with his father (which was important in his real life) as this would only complicate the already long story. It focuses on his final months and does a great job at depicting him as a somewhat romantic loser who happened to know how to rob banks (and Johnny Depp does a great job as a romantic loser, you know?).

I was trying to find some bad things about this flick, but it's not an easy task. It may sometimes feel a bit chaotic, mainly due to the filming techniques applied. It also may feel like it's not telling us much about the characters, how they are and what they really feel. However, I personally think that this is deliberate. Dillinger was a pretty simple person, he was not a philosopher, not even very smart. He had some charm and some skills, and life played a trick on him and his girls (made into one character here, probably in order to add some romance to the sad story) but that's simply it.

So, overall, it's a decent movie with great plot and a proper ratio of action and dialogue (if you watched latest Transformers you know what I mean) and as far as action dramas are concerned, this one is at least as big as "Heat" (which is in my personal Top 5 in the category) or maybe bigger. A truly epic movie, worth recommending!

Movie website here: www.publicenemies.net/
Official trailer here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWof6CovHxI