Public Enemies (2009)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Chicago, thirties of the last century. John Dillinger and the crew rob banks and with high-speed cars flee across state borders, escaping the police. The FBI is in its infancy and Hoover wants to build a reputation by catching Dillinger, a state enemy number one. Story is realistic, almost like documentary. Action scenes are well shot and from a technical standpoint film has no flaws. But, although it definitely isn't boring, it failed to pull me in. I was not tied to the characters, I wasn't rooting for either side, nor did I care about their fates. Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Jason Clarke, Stephen Graham and many other big names guarantee that trouble certainly doesn't lie in acting, but screenplay didn't left room for characterization. Characters are one-dimensional. Criminal is just a criminal, cop is just a cop, there's no background stories, no diverting from main course of the movie, no inner struggles, no emotions or depth. Just black and white and straight forward, like TV news. Though, here and there they inserted a couple of emotional moments, I guess in attempt to breathe some soul into the movie, but they only achieved needless pathetic that simply doesn't fit with the rest of it. Technically excellent film, but not essentially powerful.7/10

Liked this movie a lot. I always enjoy Johnny Depp in his roles, specially when he is playing in such mafia/action movies which have some love and feelings in them. Might say that the ending was little bit predictable but its only because the story of John Dillinger is well-known. For me personally the action part or the shooting part was a bit too long, I prefer that such things are not so much shown in the movies but given to watchers some other way. Marion Cotillard has always been my favourite and can't imagine anyone else playing better this role.

Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, the notorious gangster from the 1930s, is a ball to watch. He's a tough, dirty, smart criminal who knows how to entertain the audience. Johnny is at his best when he stops playing dress-up and takes off all the makeup and is just himself. He plays the bad guy as good as anyone, which is what he does beautifully here. Christian Bale is solid as the detective trying to take him down, but it's Michael Mann who returns to the crime genre to execute a thrilling, true story about mafia and the life of a brutal gangster in great fashion that brings us back to a critical decade in American history.

There are so many things wrong with this film I won't list them, other reviewers have pointed them all out correctly.For such an important, topical concept the script that was wrung - or squeezed to death - out of it was shameful. There is a lot of historical back story that would have made this film really sizzle. Capone, prohibition, the bank crisis and depression, Hoover and his Boyfriend Tolson, jeez these producers were asleep at the switch.I want to rewrite it, fund it and re-do the whole thing. If even Depp can't save it, WITH Christian Bale, then it's sunk like the Titanic, ripped apart by the horrific cinematography, and thankfully in THAT movie DiCaprio took the part, unlike this dud to which he said no. Good move Lenny, and what's your agent's phone number by the way x-D