Public Enemies

PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009) - July 25, 2009
A dull film about famed bank robber John Dillinger, and Melvin Purvis, the man tasked with bringing him down. Featuring the flat, jittery, cheap-looking digital cinematography Michael Mann has become infamous for of late, this was an ugly film. Mann's surprisingly shoddy direction didn't help matters; it almost looked like he arrived each day on set unprepared, and simply commanded the cameraman to follow around the actors as close as possible. The whole film looked improvised and cheap. Even aside from that, the movie just wasn't very interesting -- it basically seemed like random vignettes from Dilligner's life leading up to his death. There was no real sense of momentum, nothing really moving everything forward. There were a number of compelling sequences (though not the shootouts, surprisingly enough) and I was never all-out bored, but I was never exactly enthralled, either. It's too bad, because the performances were all top-notch. **