By the time director Michael Mann gets around to making clear his intention of creating a throwback to Hollywood gangster films of the '30s, "Public Enemies" has long since worn out its welcome.
Essentially an extended chase picture, the film (co-written by Mann with two other screenwriters) never bothers to define characters hellbent on crossing the finishing line of a narrative race that everyone already knows the outcome of.
Johnny Depp is miscast as John Dillinger (he comes across as too slight and not possessing the requisite killer instinct). Although for Michael Mann's glossy approach to his subject, it seems that Depp's measured and mannered performance is just what the director ordered.
Consistently tight camera shots exemplify Mann's inability or unwillingness to look beyond Dillinger's milieu of cohorts and would-be police captors, to the social conditions that enabled the famous bank robber to be idolized the American public and nicknamed "the Jackrabbit" for his effortless escapes.
However, the film does come miraculously together, albeit briefly, during a mesmerizing scene in which Dillinger's girlfriend Billie Frechette (Marion Cottard) is being tortured by a police investigator.
Cottard hits a dramatic zinger that erupts from the screen with a glimpse of what the film could potentially have delivered.
The spectacle of blaring machine guns, antique car chases, and hurried prison escapes is not without moments of sheer entertainment.
But when that's all there is, you just don't have much of a movie.
Rated R. 143 mins.
