A gangster's gangster

Fans of Johnny Depp are in for a treat with the summer blockbuster Public Enemies. It has been some time since a thoroughly satisfying film featured the actor in a role that asked as much of him as this inspired rendering by director Michael Mann (Miami Vice, The Insider, The Last of the Mohicans) of the life and times of notorious gangster John Dillinger.

The story is simple: An infamous criminal has the run of the city (Chicago, circa the 1930s) as well as much of the country. Depp's Dillinger is a devastating ladies' man and fearless bank robber with a short fuse and an appetite for excitement. Addressing his inamorata, Billie Frechette (played magnificently by Marion Cotillard), he coos through a wolfish grin, "I like baseball, good clothes, fast cars, whiskey and you. What more do you need to know?"

The film begins after a daring prison break, as the heyday of Dillinger's reign becomes threatened by steel-eyed lawman Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). Billy Crudup is strangely off-key as J. Edgar Hoover in a caricature of the insidious spook behind the scenes.

The theme? "Crime doesn't pay," of course. Except that it does pay, extremely well in fact. But it all catches up with Dillinger in the end, as inevitably it must in a story like this. "Love conquers all" is a close second, except that it actually conquers nothing in the end. Not that it matters. The love story between Dillinger and his gal is so riveting that it rivals the action. Mann's camera work is as tight and close as it gets - so much so that it can be difficult to track moving images when the activity picks up a bit - establishing an intimacy and a sensuality that linger, coloring an otherwise furiously paced epic and adding depth and dimensionality. The scenes with Depp and Cotillard are far and away the best in the film. The fetching star of 2007's La vie en rose matches Depp line for line, smoldering look for smoldering look, and the end result is like dueling thesps.

But enough about love. This is a gangster flick of the old school, and Mann knows what he's about. A laundry list of stars makes up the rest of the Dillinger gang and their fellows. Stephen Dorff performs admirably as Dillinger associate Homer Van Meter. Giovanni Ribisi skulks about as a heist guy trying to tempt Dillinger into joining him on a score. Two bright lights from the HBO series The Wire (Peter Gerety and Domenick Lombardozzi) do themselves proud as a forked-tongued lawyer and a mob henchman, respectively. Leelee Sobieski is dead-eyed as an accomplice to Dillinger's betrayer.

There is no doubt that the film is about a man's man in a man's world, but bits of misogyny pop up periodically in unsettling ways. There are literally no female characters of consequence apart from Cotillard, Branka Katic as a lover of Dillinger's who fingers him to the police and Lili Taylor as the meek and inept Sheriff Lillian Holley.

The bullets are blazing and there are chase scenes galore, but there's an indie feel to the cinematography at times. The aesthetic is noir by way of Jim Jarmusch, with period detail that is a little too polished for its own good. There isn't a dingy suit or unwaxed car in the film, lending a fantastic quality to an otherwise carefully researched production. Mann clearly loves films from the period, and he treats the hallmarks of the genre with respect, though he does resort to some handheld camera work that is more art house than Raol Walsh. The soundtrack is a mix of the estimable Lady Day and the execrable Diana Krall, who sadly makes an appearance in the film.

Mann makes a blatant nod to his elders and betters when Depp attends a final evening at the cinema, cutting back and forth from scenes of Manhattan Melodrama (1934), with William Powell, Myrna Loy and Clark Gable as the roguish gangster "Blackie" Gallagher, and shots of Depp in the audience looking just as wicked and just as dapper as Gable ever did. Mann's tricks  are executed with style and grace here, and the inclusion adds much, not to mention a touch of postmodernity.

There are a lot of parts to Public Enemies, but happily the whole is greater than their sum. And, not to impersonate a drunken cheerleader, but Depp and Cotillard are the glue. A lesser pair would have rendered the constant fawning over Dillinger and his moll unbearable, but these two are up to scratch.

James Walling can be reached at
jwalling@praguepost.com