Public Enemies - Okay, but not what it could have been

Johnny Depp and Christian Bale are probably two of the best-known actors around at this time.  Between them they have clocked up a wide range of varied characters and have proven their acting might on more than one occasion.  Therefore, the temptation by studio bosses to get the pair of them in the two leading roles must have proved too much to resist.

Therefore, we have Johnny Depp portraying real life gangster John Dillinger, with Christian Bale as the FBI agent hell-bent on bringing him to justice.  Naturally, as the film’s about Dillinger himself, Depp gets the lion’s share of screen time.  In fact, fans of Bale may feel a little cheated regarding how much they get to see the man behind (arguably) Batman’s most successful incarnation.  He’s little more than a figure who turns up every now and again to narrowly miss Dillinger.  We never really get to see what makes him tick – he’s just a particularly driven lawman, who has to catch his man.  I don’t recall ever seeing anything that shows us if he has any real life outside his work.

Depp too feels more than a little underused.  Dillinger’s not a particularly nice guy.  Okay, he doesn’t rob ‘regular’ people, only banks.  But he’s prone to acts of extreme violence and doesn’t think twice about killing if it suits his needs.  So the audience might find it hard to relate to him, let alone support him in his side of the story.  Depp’s better at playing larger than life characters.  Dillinger is pretty one dimensional.  He steals and he hits people and has little else to his personality.

I haven’t read Dillinger’s life story, so I can’t comment on how close the film is to portraying the real man, or how accurate is, but there were a couple of scenes which didn’t seem to fit – namely when Dillinger finds it easy to walk among entire departments of the very police officers charged with bringing him in and yet they don’t actually recognise him.

But, despite the film not really utilising its two trump cards, i.e. Bale and Depp, it’s not a bad watch.  I’m sure it’s a reasonable account of Dillinger’s life and, even if it isn’t, it’s a decent enough crime drama.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that