'Public Enemies' Deserves a Second Look

Michael Mann’s Public Enemies was one of the most anticipated films of the year (Read my Parcbench review here, John Nolte’s slightly opposing view here). However, it seems that many critics are drastically underrating this film. This is unfortunate because even though the film may not be the gangster movie we are used to; it sure has hints of perfection throughout. After reading many reviews panning this film, I decided to give it a second look.

There were still some obvious flaws. There are a couple of choppy edits as well as questionable music in the scene where Dillinger walks into the cop shop. But the flaws most people discuss don’t seem to be a true flaw at all. I’ve heard and read many people say the film has no depth and the characters are shallow. This is simply not a fair assertion.

The film may appear shallow to some, but it doesn’t give us anything we don’t need to know. That is exactly what makes this film enjoyable; there is no abundance of useless information. It is about Dillinger’s short time as public enemy number one, nothing more.

Halfway through the film I realized something. We don’t have any recent films to make a good comparison with Public Enemies. The market is full of the more modern Scorsese flicks. Of course these films are great, but all take place after 1940. We also have The Godfather saga and DePalma’s updated Scarface, as well as Ridley Scott’s American Gangster, but these are far different than Mann’s film. They are all about more mafia related crime, not bank robbers.

It looks like Michael Mann reopened the classic gangster genre, and it was about time! There are so many great classic gangster films from the studio era such as Little Caesar (1930), The Public Enemy (1931), Scarface (1932), G-Men (1935), and The Roaring Twenties (1939). It would be ten years before we saw the end of the classic genre with White Heat (1949). However, Cagney’s Cody Jarret was more like Baby Face Nelson and less like John Dillinger, who was not a monster like Nelson.

After decades without a film of this sort, Public Enemies gives us a look into the 1930’s like never before. The high definition of the time period is without rival. If anything, this film gives us the most vivid sense of the classic gangster era we have ever seen.

Robert Warshow wrote a famous essay in 1948 about the genre entitled “The Gangster as Tragic Hero.” In it, he discusses the tropes of the classic gangster figure. Warshow states that “the real city, one might say, produces only criminals; the imaginary city produces the gangster: he is what we want to be and what we are afraid we may become.”

This can be directly applied to Mann’s film. Dillinger was very much a product of his environment combined with America’s social and political atmosphere at the time. We don’t see the buildup of the depression or the crime spree that spawned the FBI. We just see the end result once Dillinger decides to take what he feels was taken from him after an unfair prison sentence.

Many of us can understand his hostility, which is what made him a tragic hero of sorts. At the time he was seen as a contemporary Robin Hood, since the banks were viewed as the real public enemy. Mann’s film gives us a story that is less gritty than past gangster flicks but still holds onto some of the characteristics that built the genre.

Also, if you look at pictures and video of the real John Dillinger, you will realize that Johnny Depp was able to emulate every movement of this man as if he really was Dillinger. Even though the scene where he goes into the police station is likely made up, it sure feels real. Depp’s Dillinger is extremely believable; regardless of the depth his character may or may not have.

Many people went into this film with a preconceived notion of what the “idea” of John Dillinger was. Public Enemies is more the story of how that idea wasn’t all that great and how it ended tragically, as it should have. All great gangster stories end tragically.

To refer back to Warshow, the classic gangster’s story should always be an exclamation on the “unlimited possibility of aggression.” Of course, Dillinger was aggressive but also a more humanist bank robber when compared to his counterparts. That is why the public took a liking to him in the first place. Public Enemies gives us a look at such humanist aggression and when stood up next to the classics, it still holds its own.