Word: mann
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Dillinger gets the genial touch of Johnny Depp's star quality in Public Enemies, the gigantic, meticulous but finally perfunctory new biopic from director and co-writer Michael Mann. There's not a soupçon of psychopathy in this Dillinger; rather, he's a smart, charming, efficient entrepreneur whose career would've lasted much longer if he hadn't been surrounded by klutzes, sharks and a betrayer from a brothel...
...Mann, from his debut feature film, Thief, through those exemplary TV series Miami Vice and Crime Story to his cop-and-crook, cat-and-mouse Heat with Pacino and De Niro, has fashioned a body of work that puts him up there with Martin Scorsese as American entertainment's definitive chronicler of the underworld. This project promised to be the crowning achievement of a Chicago kid steeped in the lore and chivalric code of the bad guy. And moment by moment, it delivers details that seem true to the time - like the bank-robbery hostages mounted on the getaway...
...grit allows for precious little dramatic juice. Given that Dillinger's death was the most famous kill in FBI history, there can be no coil of suspense in this story; its ending is as predictable as a Passion play's. The vitality has to come from whatever fresh insights Mann can find in Dillinger's Stations of the Cross. And these are lacking. Few sparks are struck in the love story; Cotillard, last year's Oscar winner for La Vie en Rose, makes a tepid bedmate for the always sexy Depp. Mostly the film displays gangsters doing their thing...
...night shades but loses in visual clarity. Some shots look like iPhone photos enlarged to 50 feet; any sharp camera movement results in a blur. The same has to be said for the movie. It lacks overall focus, and at the end you may have a question for Michael Mann: Why'd you bother...
...distant third, with $26 million for the weekend, was Public Enemies, with Johnny Depp impersonating John Dillinger under Michael Mann's direction. Somehow the story of a bank robber who died 75 years ago didn't seduce the holiday audience. Maybe when the grownups have packed their kids off to summer camp, they'll belatedly discover this rare July movie aimed at adults. In holdover action, the two Are-they-gonna-get-married? comedies The Proposal and The Hangover maintained healthy chunks of their audiences, and Pixar's Up, challenged by another 3-D animated feature, finally lost altitude...