Rent Public Enemies (2009)

Dull. dull, dull!! - Public Enemies review by Tim from London

What on earth has happenned to Michael Mann? From the heights of Manhunter, Heat and the Insider - he now seems unable to make even a half decent film. Although this is not as bad as Ali or Collateral, it is seriously underwhelming. Yes - it looks great at times, the suits are sharp and the film has the feel of many of the great gangster films of the 30s. But it has nothing to say - and the two leads look completely uninterested. I think Christopher Biggins would have made a more menacing gangster than Johnny Depp - and he has no chemistry whatsoever with Marion Cotillard. If you want a proper gangster film get the original with James Cagney or White Heat - then see how it should be done.

A rubbish, frustrating, idiotic & baffling misfire. How did the director of Heat produce this dud? - Public Enemies review by TB

Michael Mann is, without question, one of the most influential writer/directors who has ever lived. Heat, The Last of the Mohicans and Collateral are each films which, if anyone had even 1 of them in their filmography, would make them iconic. But he has also been responsible for some almost indescribably terrible films, where you wonder how the same man can be responsible for them. After the extremely poorly received Miami Vice, which should have been a triumph (given Mann produced the wildly successful TV series,) but was almost unwatchable, Mann announced he was working on a true-life story which almost had been sent by the gods for him to adapt: the life of infamous bank robber John Dillinger & the relentless pursuit of him by the FBI.

Then add into the mix the casting of 2 of the hottest actors working at that time (Depp and Bale,) alongside a massive budget, being able to film in the actual locations where the events happened & the incredible production team Mann can assemble, this was set to be an epic film. The early, overwhelmingly positive reviews reinforced this, so I was pumped as I sat in the cinema. Then the film started...

It is almost impossible to describe just how badly this film has been made. From a technical standpoint, the sound is by some distance the worst of these things: you simply cannot hear properly what is being said. In the opening prison escape, you are straining to hear the dialogue over the gunfire or, once the action moves to the car, the engine noise. The ADR (actor recording their lines in post-production for clarity,) either hasn't been done, or the sound engineer needs to be sacked. And this isn't just in this one scene. Throughout the whole film, the sound will sometimes be undecipherable. Depp's accent, which I have no doubt he worked hard on creating, is so low in pitch it simply adds to the problems.

And then we come to the cinematography & camera work. Handheld cameras/Cinéma Vérité can, when used properly, be one of the best ways to film, especially in battle scenes, such as in Saving Private Ryan. But Mann made 2 inexplicable choices: to film in the highest quality crystal-clear 4K HD, and for the camera to be thrown about all over the place. So, in many ways, it looks like this film was shot with a smartphone by a 5 year old child. The insanely high quality just looks terrible, in the sense that you have perfect time-period sets & costumes, which then is filmed like you are a documentary crew shooting a behind-the-scenes feature.

And the camera itself is never still, constantly twitching & jerking. The action scenes are all but unwatchable, especially the shootout in the lodge, where the DP several times seems to not be sure who he is meant to be filming, so keeps flitting between actors.

In terms of acting, so much damage is done with how the film is shot that actually no-one really stood out for me. Depp is perfectly watchable, and the one meaty scene that he & Bale share (where for once the camera is relatively still & the sound alright,) hints at what could have been. Others aren't so lucky. Stephen Graham plays a mobster who is shown as so psychotic & unstable that it becomes idiotic. Again, a phenomenal actor who is reduced to screaming & shooting as his character's memorable traits.

Over 2 & a bit hours, this film lumbers on, with minute flashes of brilliance which are quickly shut down by atrocious production. The one massive highlight was the Elliot Goldenthal soundtrack, a beautiful mixture of orchestral magnificence. But this is one bright spark amongst the dreck.

For a film that had so much going for it, in so many different ways, this is a total waste of time, energy & potential. I used to think it was just the worst film of 2009, but now it is without question one of the worst I've ever seen, when you consider what it truly could have been...