‘Public Enemies’: A Fascinating & Ultimately Frustrating, Moody Arthouse Blockbuster

The moody and intense “Public Enemies” is a curious picture, and mark our words, it’s going to be a great divider with lots in two polarized camps of love or hate. One, because it’s paradoxically wandering and aimless and at other times fully engaging. It’s one half of a great film that sometimes becomes — as Michael Mann seems to be as a person — too meditatively obsessed with details that detract from the big picture, but also create a super detailed and rich universe to be transported into. It might just boil down to what you truly value in a film and your subjectivity, but there’s a strong chance that those without patience will find it dull and erratic as bursts of tommy gun fire.

It’s also one of the most bold and unconventional summer blockbusters released in recent memory, but let’s judge it as a stand-alone picture and not what it should or shouldn’t be in the middle of the summer. After all, its date is really a ruse. It’s a Michael Mann film that’s not a tentpole film which happens to be released in July because of names like Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and the $$ possibilities of a “gangster epic” with two heavyweights going toe-to-toe. That alone is admittedly a delicious premise, but if you’ve come strictly for an action film, you’ve come to the wrong place.

And although, frequently gripping, intense and masterfully crafted (Mann has a near erection for production design) the filmmaker’s 10th feature is also as uneven as his oeuvre (many will disagree, let them) and not at all a blockbuster. It’s also emotionally aloof, slow to coalesce and editorially neutral to almost an infuriating degree, not to mention free of most traditional narrative beats, which can make for a laborious experience. Characters don’t have arcs and in fact, it so defies the three-act structure, it resembles more of a chronicle of two Alpha Males on a doggedly linear collision course than it does any A-B-C story and one often bereft of heart or soul. And yet still, there’s ancillary pleasures and elements to admire.

Marketed as a 1930s action gangster picture, what Mann has really delivered is a meticulous, slow-burning arthouse saga that is incredibly idiosyncratic and bares his stamp everywhere. Whether mainstream audiences will respond to this picture as they would a regular summer tentpole however, remains to be seen.

In this respect, the film resembles the POV-less “Che,” realized by Stephen Soderbergh. Expository dialogue is kept to a minimum and we learn about every character, through their actions, not their words. And while the apolitical nature of “Che” was by design, and perhaps necessary given the polarizing figure, this tack utilized in a 1930s gangster picture feels like an odd choice, especially given the lead character, John Dillinger is ostensibly playing a Robin Hood type character.

The digital photography is another strange aesthetic decision which will leave some viewers feeling one layer further removed from the emotional coolness. While it can take one out of the picture initially — and the digital framing does look out of place — it is a far more pleasing and successful look than the grainy mess of “Miami Vice” (but the shaky, extreme close-up feel anachronistic).

Zero character motivations or back story are given and the audience joins what feels like a story in progress. John Dillinger (Depp) is in the middle of his notorious crime wave and one so huge it creates ripples around the then, still-provincial United States. A veritable folk hero, he is essentially unattainable from the law, as the man-of-the-people celebrity status he enjoys affords him undercover asylum in any city he decides to cool off in. But the politically motivated J. Edger Hoover (unctuously played by Billy Crudup with an adenoidal and off putting accent) has other plans and anoints Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to be the star officer of his nascent FBI agency after the goldenboy policeman becomes distinguished for terminating prominent bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum, in a brief cameo) with extreme prejudice. A champion of press attention and manipulation, Hoover ostensibly has a long term game plan, deftly realizing the capture of Dillinger and infamous criminals like Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) will get his embryonic Bureau off the ground and the funding it needs, but this can only really be inferred (and if you haven’t read the script you might be scratching your head in certain parts).
Mann’s movies have been increasingly free of the familiar rhythms of mainstream moviemaking, sans big dramatic turning-points, and ‘Enemies’ is no different, perhaps going subtle to a fault. The understatement extends to performances too. Christian. Bale’s FBI man is so subterranean, his character feels either incredibly ill-defined or impossible to get a read on. And truthfully it feels like a bit of both as his only clear motivation seems to be to uphold justice which makes him rather one-dimensional (Bale also might want to take a romantic comedy, his unsmiling methodness is getting to be a bit dour of late).

Other characters — and there are many of them — are equally poorly sketched out. The Dillinger gang member Charles Makley (Christian Stolte) is clearly a loose cannon, but that’s about all we get out of him. Overloaded with name-brand actors, aside from maybe Stephen Dorff’s Homer Van Meter character — who still has about as much character depth as “loyal Dillinger gang member” — the rest of the names, Giovanni Ribisi, David Wenham, Lili Taylor, Leelee Sobieski, Carey Mulligan, Channing Tatum, Rory Cochrane and Stephen Lang, are essentially glorified cameo placeholders without a ton of substance. Mann seems so beholden to history that he fails to dramatize much with his docu-drama-like style. Yet at the same time, he clearly wishes to romanticize Dillinger and it’s almost as if he’s at odds with himself.

As per usual, the director seems to be obsessed with the nature of great men and how to fetishize their manly actions, many times at the expense of forward narrative. It’s like a careful character study of actions, but not personality and unlike “Che,” the actions don’t reveal a ton about the still mysterious characters.

The saving grace character and acting wise is the charismatic Johnny Depp and the underused Marion Cotillard. Their love story, which sort of leads Dillinger astray, is presumably the focal point, but there’s so many threads in the picture, the crux of the picture becomes hazy. Still, as overly serious as many Mann films can be, Depp’s sly, sang-froid and jovial performance helps the picture from backsliding too much into humorless territory (something that truly marred “Miami Vice”). His relaxed, live-for-today attitude is also well-rounded, possessing a duality of hubris and caution with fiery, impulsive passion as well. Naturally then, Dillinger is a contradictory persona, giving his coat to a woman he just kidnapped momentarily (just to get away of course) and telling old timers to take their personal earnings back (“we’re here for the bank’s money, not yours,” Dillinger says). A cold blooded killer who also happens to be a people person who cares. The beautiful belle, Cotillard as Dillinger’s “Blackbird,” babe, is steely eyed, resolute and extremely capable, but her character also doesn’t have a lot to do other than put up mild defenses to Depp’s brazen charms. Moreover, the reasons for his passionate love seem rail thin; he seemingly is only magnetically drawn to her for her bewitching looks, as we really don’t get to know them together as a couple.

His Robin Hood-like actions, quickly gain him the empathy of the people still in the depths of the depression, headlines in the press, and obviously, the attention of the Feds. In this regard, the measured showdown between two Alpha Males on the opposite sides of the law reminds us of “Heat” simply in another setting — Pacino vs. DeNiro with a whole surplus of side players and a girl under the arm of the badboy (and like “Heat,” Depp and Bale also have only one face-off in the film).

If ‘Enemies’ attempts to say anything at all (aside from being strictly a historical heavyweight bout from another era), it’s perhaps that all of us must adapt or face extinction. While love is part of Dillinger’s downfall, what really bring on his fate is his need for attention and thrills. Bank robbing, even by 1930s is too loud of a game. It draws plenty of Federal attention and headlines that are bad for business and his criminal underworld peers (characterized by a slickster, John Ortiz) quickly shut him out (they’re already on to quieter, state of the art illegal business — using a vast phone network and taking advantage of the coastal time zone differences to rig bets on horse races that haven taken place yet). Displacing the order of things, Dillinger is persona non grata everywhere and his demise seems inevitable. While he’s been indulging carefree in his untouchable crime status, he’s become an antiquated figure. A man on the outs with the times of his day.

‘Enemies’ is immense and the symphonic grandeur and scope will surely beguile those seduced with craft. An immersive experience, the biggest strength of the somewhat aimless first half of the picture, is just how ensconced the viewer becomes in Mann’s precisionist world. The filmmaker only deals with five course meals, no truffles here. When Bale’s Purvis’ pursuit finally starts to box-in the criminal, making him “feel the heat,” the picture starts to light up with thrilling and intense action sequences; something finally feels like its at stake. When the throttle is let loose, the picture roars. These sequences in the picture’s third act are taut and at times, mesmerizing, but they also arrive during the 3/4 mark of a two hour and 20 minute film with no discernible structure. A little too late is perhaps an overstatement, but it comes close.

Elliot Goldenthal’s score, while mostly restrained and reigned in, is quite sublime when it eventually opens up helping the film achieve some dramatic poignancy and making up for lost time and misplaced emotional hooks.

Mann is no doubt a director of vision and the initial experience of the sweeping third act is electric, but by this point, the connection between audience and characters still feels largely distant. There is power and resonance in the delivery and well-observed execution, however, the deliberate pace and internal-world characterizations frustratingly mute the overall impact.

At two hours and twenty minutes, “Public Enemies” takes a long time to hook its claws and will test patience and or just lose people along the way. It’s hard to imagine cineplexgoers flocking to this one unless all they’ve seen is the rough and tumble, rock n’ sock ’em trailers we complained about earlier this year. Like Mann and many of his pictures, ‘Enemies,’ is systematic and methodical (it also aggressively follows the script that he co-wrote to the very letter, which gives you perhaps another example of the director’s notorious perfectionism), and so the clinical air makes some of the proceedings rather lifeless. Some have already carped about the complaints thrown at ‘Enemies’: “aren’t you glad there’s pictures like this being made during the summer?,” they crow in attempts to scold you for censuring an adventurous tentpole. Sure, that goes without saying, but they still have to be enjoyable. And what, we’re supposed to overlook what doesn’t work on as a whole because of the calendar month? Sorry, no. [B-]