Public Enemies (Thumb Down)
Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” (Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, etc.) Thumbs down for me, I’m afraid.
In a word, I found this movie tedious. Very slow-moving between the action scenes, and not in a “let’s take a breather” sort of way. More of a “let’s take a nap” sort of way.
Also, it was too confusing. There was very little explanation of how people knew what they knew, why they did what they did, at any particular moment. Maybe they figured everyone knows the story so well, there’s no need to spell things out? Well it didn’t work for me.
Also, the look of the film was not that impressive. The interior shots all looked like low-quality video! I guess there’s no theoretical reason why a good movie can’t be made on video, but the look makes me feel like I’m watching a cheap TV show.
The actors were mostly pretty boring, especially the lead. I think me might have been reigning it in on purpose, to avoid people thinking he was still Capt. Jack. I just thought he was sleepwalking. Only Stephen Lang (the old Fed at the end) and Peter Garity (the defense lawyer) seemed to imbue their characters with any personality.
For the record, the story: John Dillinger and the Feds that are out to bring him to justice. Based on historical facts, this story has been told many times before (and more excitingly, as in John Milius’s “Dillinger” starring Warren Oates).
Anyway, that’s the way I felt. I found I was more interested in the scenes from “Manhattan Melodrama” that were shown in the movie-within-the-movie! Now Clark Gable, there was an actor!…….Jake
