Rated R

Directed by Michael Mann

Starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Channing Tatum, David Wenham

I’ve also enjoyed many of Michael Mann’s past movies and I’ve liked Johnny Depp for many, many years. All of which added to my high hopes for “Public Enemies.”

Oh how I wanted to like this movie. I’m a fan of gangster movies, and a good one hasn’t come along in awhile, and still hasn’t.

This movie is a waste of talent, due entirely to a bad script. Johnny Depp gives a solid performance as John Dillinger, but the entire story leaves much to be desired. Christian Bale, who plays FBI agent Melvin Puvis, is flat and boring, and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard shows she can act, but do we care?

The main problem with “Public Enemies,” is the lack of character development. These characters drift in and out of beautifully crafted scenes – we recognize their names, but unless we’ve read up on gangster and bank robber history, we know very little about them, and after watching “Public Enemies” we still know very little about them.

Without character development, I just don’t care about the lives of the people I am watching on the big screen (or reading about in a book). In addition, the audience doesn’t really know what character they are supposed to be rooting for in this movie – the charismatic bank robber/murder John Dillinger or the monotone FBI agent Melvin Purvis?

The writers and director create a sort of moral ambiguity, and this may have been purposeful. After all, Dillinger was a bit of a hero during his day, a time when the average Joe was unhappy with the banks and down on rich. However, even if this ambiguity was intentional, I think it muddled the audience, especially when little emotional attachment has been developed between the audience and the characters due to the superficial way in which the characters are developed on screen.

The more I thought about it, the more disappointed I became with “Public Enemies.” I give this one a pitiful rating of 2 out of 5. It gains the rating of two based solely on the solid performances by Depp and Cotillard and the cinematography.