During the 1930s there was a wave of crime across America. One of the biggest characters from the time was John Dillinger [Johnny Depp]. The FBIs director, J. Edgar Hoover [Billy Crudup], has announced his war on crime and set up a task force to take down all these criminals with Dillinger as the top target. The leader of the task force is Melvin Purvis [Christian Bale] a promising agent in the agency on the rise.

Now first of all let me be straight with you all, I have never been the biggest fan of Michael Mann films for the reason that I almost never like them on the first watch. However, at the same time I find myself loving most of his movies on subsequent viewings. This is my little way of saying that even though I didn’t fall in love with Public Enemies it isn’t a real measure as to whether the movie is really good or not. So if you’re a true Michael Mann fan just ignore me and go check it out otherwise read on.

Michael Mann is a director who loves action over exposition. He prefers to show you what is being done rather than spend ten minutes of dialogue explaining the plans and then cutting out the actually robbery scene, which was definitely shown here. Even though at one point we kind of think that these characters are so experienced at what they do that they no longer really plan too much. It’s just a choice of who’s in the car, who’s at the door and who goes inside. I must say that I found this refreshing, even though one of my favourite movies is Reservoir Dogs which actually never shows you the robbery and just talks about it this movie did the complete opposite and did it right. One of my favourite scenes has to be the prison break from Indiana where Dillinger breaks out of prison using what seems to be a fake pistol. The tension in that scene is amazing and the level by level taking over of the prison to escape.

Where this movie failed to deliver was painting an image of the true reasons why John Dillinger was a famous character during his time and also giving us a true feeling of this character. The film begins with text on the screen that we are in the middle of the depression. That is why Dillinger was a famed thief. It was a well known fact, and as shown in the trailer, that Dillinger robbed banks and would frequently take the money out of the vault but hand the customers back whatever cash was directly out of their pockets. So even though Dillinger was no Robin Hood he definitely took from the men who the public felt were doing them wrong, just like today with all the banks failing during the recession, which was something that the public loved. Who John Dillinger was in this movie is defined as a bank robber. We don’t know anything else about this character. The closest we get to learning anything else about him is when he tells Billie [Marion Cotillard] in one line that “I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars and you. What else you need to know?” I also think that Mann took that line of dialogue seriously and felt like I didn’t need to know anything else. As if I wouldn’t care about this character. This flaw, of not giving enough development or explanation to the character of Melvin Purvis and Billie is shown throughout the film. It is as if Mann thinks all I need to know is that a person is a good or bad guy and move on.

One minor role that I enjoyed was that of J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover only had like two real scenes but I loved them, especially the one where he is before the committee asking for more funding to fund the war on crime initiative. The dialogue between Hoover and the committee is just classic. When he is asked about his own arrest record and we find out that Hoover is just an administrator and not a practical man to do the job.

Overall as I said before here a movie for Mann fans and historians probably. The acting is great and the robbery scenes are great, but in the end I’m underwhelmed by these characters. I think this movie is best reserved for a rental and no more.

IMDB says 7.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 65%

I say 5.5/10