Brilliant performances make PUBLIC ENEMIES a must have DVD

Universal Pictures | 2009 | Rated R | 140 minutes | List price: $34.98 | Get it for less at Amazon

The first thing that you will notice about Michael Mann’s film PUBLIC ENEMIES, new on DVD and Blu-ray today, is how he is able to contain the larger than life mythology that has become John Dillinger. From the movie’s opening, Mann and cinematographer Dante Spinotti, who had previously collaborated together on Mann’s 1995 film HEAT, keep the camera as tight as they can on their subjects, never allowing the viewer to see the enormity of 1930s Chicago. Instead, the frame is filled with the immediate characters in the scene, establishing from the onset a differentiation between the outside world, that where John Dillinger is both public enemy number one as well as a romanticized folk hero, and the closed circle of Dillnger’s private world. The audience knows that there is something more existing right off of screen, an inescapable danger, and thus the tension of PUBLIC ENEMIES is created. This is not to say that Mann ignores the vastness of the Dillinger myth, for he regularly utilizes low angle shots, forcing the viewer to look up at the larger than life image of Dillinger. It was here that I realized that this was not your ordinary gangster film.

It would be easy to allow Dillinger the myth to run loose on the screen, and equally as likely that an actor playing the notorious bank robber would expand their performance to try and encompass an image of Dillinger that has been generated over the last seventy odd years, even if rooted more in fiction than in reality. Johnny Depp however does not do this. Depp instead draws inward, allowing his performance to become tightly packaged within himself, and thus controlling that which can be seen on an outward level. The result is brilliant. Much like Spinotti’s tightly framed shots, Depp’s performance allows the viewer to know that there exists something much greater underneath the surface that is not being allowed to be seen. Dillinger was a murderer, but we do not see a stereotypical rage or bloodlust that could easily have been mined by a lesser actor. Depp’s internalization has the result of a controlled calmness that completely conveys an unbridled confidence. Thus, when Dillinger is asked, “Where are you going?,” the response of, “Anywhere I want,” as delivered by Depp, has a multi-layered resonance that speaks volumes about the character.

This subtle calmness within the chaos that Depp creates is beautifully matched by the amazing Marion Cotillard (LA VIE EN ROSE). Playing Dillinger’s girlfriend, Billie Frechette, Cotillard has a subtlety to her performance that creates an immediate chemistry on screen with Depp and that solidifies her as an actress of enormous depth. Once again, there is so much going on just beneath the surface, and Cotillard can instantly convey a wide range of emotions with a single look. This I think is a key element of Mann’s direction and what I found to be most successful with the film. Mann allows those small moments of subtlety to exist, he does not have the pacing of the action barrel over Depp’s and Cotillard’s performances. The characters are free to share a moment to simply look at one another, without exchanging words, and to thus convey more than a drawn out scene of professing their inner feelings at that moment ever could. Frechette too could be a character portrayed in a basis of cliché or melodrama, but Cotillard does not allow this to happen. We are not presented with a typical gangster girlfriend who we have seen on screen a hundred times before, but instead are invited to discover a fully realized character capable of a quiet strength.

Likewise, Billy Cruddup (ALMOST FAMOUS) gives a great turn as FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, another character who could have easily been based solely in the stereotype of the modern public legend than in originality. Cruddup finds something more complex though and his Hoover gives us something different than has been seen time and time again, making his supporting performance stand out.

With such amazing performances by the extremely talented Depp and Cotillard, a great supporting cast and with a bold choice in how this movie was filmed, relying heavily on the tightly framed close-up, I still came away from the movie not completely satisfied. I did enjoy the film, and do recommend that you see it, but ultimately, I would’ve like to have seen a little bit of that which Mann kept just on the fringe, the enormity of the mythology of Dillinger that existed at the time amidst the chaos. At one point we are briefly allowed to see an over the shoulder shot of crowds cheering on Dillinger as he rides in a car and it is here that I would’ve been interested in seeing a bit more. By juxtaposing Dillinger as folk hero, Dillinger as ruthless gangster and Dillinger as someone who truly loved Frechette, I think a better film would’ve emerged. Perhaps in the end, Mann contracted and confined his Dillinger a little too much.

Universal has released a two-disc Special Edition of PUBLIC ENEMIES and for a limited time is including a digital copy of the film that will allow viewers to watch it on their home computers. The two discs contain:

Disc One

• “Larger Than Life: Adversaries” (10:15) a documentary focusing on Dillinger and Purvis
• Feature length audio commentary with Michael Mann

Disc Two

• “Michael Mann: Making PUBLIC ENEMIES” (20:30)
• “Last of the Legendary Outlaws” (8:40)
• “On Dillinger’s Trail: The Real Locations” (9:45) a great featurette showing how Mann sought out the actual historical locations that Dillinger used and how he transformed the Biograph theatre in Chicago to appear as it did in 1934
• “Criminal Technology” (9:35)

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Movie Rating:

DVD bonus features: AVERAGE