Public Enemies

More often than not, when I have a problem with a Hollywood blockbuster, my primary gripe is with the script. We've all seen them: those big-budget, star-studded, action-packed, over-the-top fiascoes that fall flat because the writers were paid to shit something out as a jump-start to the process rather than worry about crafting anything that even remotely approaches worthwhile—movies that nevertheless make all the money they were meant to because the viewing public is dazzled into hollow satisfaction. Well, Public Enemies has different problems.

At $100 million, Michael Mann's latest comes through with excellent costuming and set design. It would be hard to find a bigger pairing than Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, neither of whom disappoints, bringing the quality performances (and accents) I've come to expect. Though I wouldn't call the film action-packed, there's certainly no shortage of gunfire. (It is about a bank robber, after all.) Throw in French, Oscar-winning beauty Marion Cotillard and who can complain?

Where Public Enemies misses the mark is in the seemingly unlikeliest of places: lighting and cinematography (/ staging). It starts out innocently enough; the hand-held camera and oppressive yellow suit the opening prison-break (even if the shot framing Depp starkly against the blue sky as his car speeds away is a little strange). It's not until the plot slows down and Depp's John Dillinger finds himself in the dark ballroom where he will first meet his sweetheart (Cotillard), that we begin to realize darkness is obscuring some of the critical actions. As the couple dances we become aware of the over-use of close-ups, and as they dine we begin to wonder if the hand-held shake is really appropriate for every emotion. Later, when Bale's Melvin Purvis speaks to his team of investigators, we get our best view yet of how distracting all this mishandling can be as we watch the oddly cast shadows swim over his inappropriately sickly pallor.

If you want to know how the movie ends, I can't tell you. (I walked out.) I kept wanting the performances and story to carry me through, but the plot moved just slowly enough to be overwhelmed by the quick pans and low light (and was not helped along by staging that sometimes de-emphasized important movements). I just couldn't care anymore. The shots you saw in the trailer were the best the film had to offer, and they were too fast, too few and too far between to hold the story. I mentioned the sets, but in truth we weren't really allowed to appreciate their grandeur, washed-out and poorly framed as they unfortunately tended to be. With all the elegance of a Discovery Channel docu-drama, this film looked like it could have been shot in my back yard, so much so that as I walked home under the streetlights I felt like I was still trapped in the screen. Mann's unruly, ill-lit, gritty style may have been appropriate for the modern-day, late-night LA of Collateral, but falls well short of conveying the period romanticism that Public Enemies deserved.

The film isn't terrible, just unwatchable. For this story, send me the novelization.