Monday, September 28, 2009

Public Enemies


A rather disappointing film because of the storytelling but -at least for me- my loving of Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard allowed me to not stop watching the movie and enjoy their performances as much as possible. As a matter of fact the only moments I really enjoyed were when the two characters Dillinger and Billie Frechette finally had enough time together in the story and screen.

The film tells about the last years in John Dillinger life, but actually tells more about how thanks to him the FBI grew to become what it is and how federal laws in the USA changed forever. Consequently also tells about the last of the big name criminals, as from there on organized crime became more “popular” than gangs with one strong and legendary leader.

I suppose that this film is more suited for men than women, as focuses more on gun fights and very long scenes where you can only hear the gun machines noise and fire peculiar to guns in those years. These scenes were too noisy and really boring for me. As a matter of fact I found that the storytelling was not exciting, totally lacking or generating emotions and the movie felt very long with 140 minutes.

Now I’m surer that I’m no Michael Mann fan as his films with his directing and storytelling style definitively do not appeal to me. It was most unfortunately that Depp and Cotillard were in this movie, but the few scenes they have together are really nice even if only come almost at the end of the movie.

If you like Johnny Depp and/or Marion Cotillard performances you have to watch them here, but I suggest you rent the DVD and fast forward all the noisy and boring parts. If you like crime biopics, you will be disappointed as there is not much character development and the film sort of assumes that you already know the characters so you only see incidents flowing one after the other. But if you enjoy watching a methodical approach to violence, then this is a film you should not miss.

Not a very satisfying cinematic experience and definitively a very long film that didn’t took advantage of the huge star cast that includes Christian Bale and Billy Crudup as Edgar J. Hoover among many more.

Enjoy.

Watch trailer @ Movie On Companion

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