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tartysuzIt's so hot, we went to see a movie for the air conditioning. We wound up at Public Enemies, wherein Johnny Depp as John Dillinger goes to a movie -- for the air conditioning. LOL!
That was one of that movie's few moments of acuity -- or even just plain old entertainment. The source material for this film is great. There are so many potential stories:
- the bank robber as folk hero;
- the popular Robin Hood versus the hard-to-love sheriff;
- the bureaucratization of both crime fighting and criminal activity;
- the shift types of heroes and heroism from an agrarian economy to a tertiary economy;
- the expansion of the FBI.
etc.
Michael Mann just needed to pick a story, any story. Instead, he delivers a bloody long mess. The problem with the cat-and-mouse structure is that Dillinger is far more interesting than they can make his FBI nemesis, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). Both leads phone it in. Depp is drowning, not waving in dialogue that reads like Bartlett's Quotes, while Bale's character is so underwritten, he coasts on a few flinty looks.
In principle, I don't have a problem with directors using HD for feature films, but the use of stripped down shaky-cam video to add hullabaloo to certain scenes felt like we were watching a rough cut. Way to kick us out of the movie just when things were getting exciting.
There was also a distracting amount of stunt casting (Diana Krall as a torch singer), or cameos of starlets (Emilie de Ravin, Channing Tatum) in minuscule parts. I did like Marion Cotillard's performance, although I didn't buy Dillinger's schmoopiness toward her. I also looked at Giovanni Ribisi differently: he makes for a strong, under-the-radar gangster.
Since the film has no idea what it's about, Public Enemies has more endings than Lord of the Rings. The first came after the first 10 minutes; the last comes after Dillinger is fatally shot. Faced with an unknown amount of time remaining in this interminable film, I mentally yelled at the screen: "He's dead! Why is isn't this film over?!"
That was one of that movie's few moments of acuity -- or even just plain old entertainment. The source material for this film is great. There are so many potential stories:
- the bank robber as folk hero;
- the popular Robin Hood versus the hard-to-love sheriff;
- the bureaucratization of both crime fighting and criminal activity;
- the shift types of heroes and heroism from an agrarian economy to a tertiary economy;
- the expansion of the FBI.
etc.
Michael Mann just needed to pick a story, any story. Instead, he delivers a bloody long mess. The problem with the cat-and-mouse structure is that Dillinger is far more interesting than they can make his FBI nemesis, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). Both leads phone it in. Depp is drowning, not waving in dialogue that reads like Bartlett's Quotes, while Bale's character is so underwritten, he coasts on a few flinty looks.
In principle, I don't have a problem with directors using HD for feature films, but the use of stripped down shaky-cam video to add hullabaloo to certain scenes felt like we were watching a rough cut. Way to kick us out of the movie just when things were getting exciting.
There was also a distracting amount of stunt casting (Diana Krall as a torch singer), or cameos of starlets (Emilie de Ravin, Channing Tatum) in minuscule parts. I did like Marion Cotillard's performance, although I didn't buy Dillinger's schmoopiness toward her. I also looked at Giovanni Ribisi differently: he makes for a strong, under-the-radar gangster.
Since the film has no idea what it's about, Public Enemies has more endings than Lord of the Rings. The first came after the first 10 minutes; the last comes after Dillinger is fatally shot. Faced with an unknown amount of time remaining in this interminable film, I mentally yelled at the screen: "He's dead! Why is isn't this film over?!"
