[Movie 307 / Day 326]
Michael Mann’s telling of the story of notorious American gangster John Dillinger, for me, ended up being much less than the sum of its parts. I mean, a director like Mann and two of the biggest names in Hollywood in Johnny Depp and Christian Bale doing a movie about a gangster during the 30s? That’s clearly going to be a kick-ass flick. At least, that’s what I was thinking when I sat down to watch it. I’d heard a few bad rumblings about it from friends when it was in the cinema and so I’d never gone to see it. Those bad reviews were pushed to the back of my mind though, I mean, it’s impossible to be that bad, surely?
Sadly, I really didn’t like it. I literally almost fell asleep. The pacing seemed set to glacial. I don’t mind a long film, and I don’t mind a slow paced film, but PUBLIC ENEMIES is on another level. It’s 140 minute running time felt like a plodding 240. Compounding the issue was a problem I had with the sound. I don’t know if it was my particular set-up or the bluray I was watching, but the audio was terrible. The centre channel (the one used for the vocals) seemed incredibly quiet; so much so that I could hardly hear some stretches of dialogue as they were swamped by the rest of the mix. It’s not a problem I’ve had since, so I’m not sure what was happening. It really distracted from the movie though.
Having said that, it wasn’t all bad. The style of the movie was really nicely judged, period cars and costumes looking great albeit slightly muted. The few scenes where something happened that piqued my interest were really good – notably the big Tommy gun based shootout towards the end.
Overall though, it’s not a movie I have any desire to ever see again. Shame, it could have been so much more.
Rating: 
[ IMDB rating: 7.3 / 10 | IMDB link | Running time: 140 mins ]