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Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Bale)

Grade the movie


  • Total voters
    23

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FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Bale) sets his sights on American gangsters John Dillinger (Depp) and Pretty Boy Floyd (Tatum) in an attempt to curb a rampant Midwest crime spree during the 1930s.

Michael Mann's newest crime drama will be released in a few days. The movie is based on a true story. It looks really cool. Who else is looking forward to seeing it?

pepostersm.jpg
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

Doesn't look as though it can go too far wrong.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

I have one of those free movie ticket codes you get from DVDs/Blu-rays for Ice Age. Since it comes out the same day as Public Enemies, I'm going to try to find a theater that accepts the ticket and is showing both movies at about the same time and sneak into that one.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

Really want to see this but will have to wait almost a month until the end of July before it opens here.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

pepostersm.jpg


Dillinger- This town deserves a better class of criminal, and i'm going to give it to them.........


Sorry but the similarities to "The Dark Knight" posters are funny.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

^:lol:

"Who are you?"

"I'm Bat...er...I'm Melvin Purvis!"

All joking aside, though--I am dying to see this.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

I've been looking forward to this, especially since a friend of mine is a featured extra in the movie.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

Who's looking forward to it? Umm...new Michael Mann movie? With Johnny Depp?

Yeah...just a bit.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

Should be pretty awesome. All of the right elements are certainly there.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

I'm planning on seeing it tomorrow afternoon...Canada Day and all...so I'm hoping everyone will be going to take their families to either Revenge of the Fallen or Ice Age 3. I've been looking forward to it since I first saw the trailers...it looks awesome.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

I'm planning on seeing it tomorrow afternoon...Canada Day and all...so I'm hoping everyone will be going to take their families to either Revenge of the Fallen or Ice Age 3. I've been looking forward to it since I first saw the trailers...it looks awesome.

Me too. :)
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

It does look cool. I may give it a check.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

I might see this movie but it feels weird. My family was apart of that gang :cardie:
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

I'm looking forward to seeing this, but I've been disappointed to find that many of the reviews have been surprisingly mixed. Even Ebert hesitates to call it a "great movie." Still: Michael Mann, Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and Marion Cottilard. It doesn't seem like that could go wrong.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

I'm looking forward to seeing this, but I've been disappointed to find that many of the reviews have been surprisingly mixed. Even Ebert hesitates to call it a "great movie." Still: Michael Mann, Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and Marion Cottilard. It doesn't seem like that could go wrong.

It seems that the general consensus is that this is less one of Mann's great story films, like Heat and Collateral, and more one of his "Okay, this is what happened, now I'm going to make it look really, really cool, okay, bye," films, like Ali and The Insider. So I'm pretty sure I'll still dig it.
 
Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

^Now that I've seen it, I think that analysis is right on the money.

Public Enemies is a good movie. A really good movie, in fact. But, like Ebert, I thought it lacked that little extra something that would have made it a great movie.

In my case, I think that little extra something was characterization. Dillinger is probably the only fully-realized character in the film. And that's very unfortunate, because Mann drops all sorts of intriguing hints about his law-enforcement characters.

The impression I got was that Purvis was out of his depth in the manhunt for Dillinger--that he had been promoted too quickly by the power- and headline-hungry Hoover. He made poor decisions, under pressure, and then acted recklessly, trying to compensate for those poor decisions--and in the process, he came into conflict with one of his subordinates, Agent Winstead. This, the movie seemed to hint, made Purvis almost as much a 'public enemy' as Dillinger.

But, frustratingly, the law-enforcement side of the story wasn't fully developed, and all we got were hints. Bale was as watchable as ever, but his Purvis remained something of a cipher, compared to Depp's Dillinger.

On the positive side--this was a very well-made and authentic-seeming historical crime drama. The gunfights were particularly well-staged, and as with Heat I was particularly impressed by the sound of what was happening. The acting was quite good, as was the direction and pacing: it seemed a lot shorter than 2 hours and 20 minutes.

But without a fully-developed antagonist for Dillinger in the form of Purvis, the film couldn't quite reach the heights of Heat or Collateral. So it wound up being just "above average" instead of "excellent," in my opinion.
 
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Re: Public Enemies - Grading and Discussion (Johnny Depp, Christian Ba

Thanks for that, Camelopard. Your (slightly tempered) praise is enough to get me to see this film, though I may have to wait a week.
 
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