My review for Public Enemies is now available over at Showcase, so I'm bumping this back up with a link included below.]
Yes, I've just returned home from a screening of Michael Mann's Public Enemies - my full review will be up as my column at Showcase tomorrow, I'll link to it then - and this is the official place for those who have seen the film to discuss it as loud and long as they want. Spoilers are okay here, so if you don't want to know, don't read.
As for me? There are certainly flashes of Michael Mann's particular brilliance - lots of 'em - but on the whole this doesn't really live up to his body of work as a whole. Bale is bland and the film as a whole suffers from an extreme case of bloat. Depp is great, though, as are Stephen Graham and Billy Crudup in support roles. On the whole I rate it just okay, which is a pretty major disappointment considering I was expecting excellence.
Thanks for your take Kurt, I am interested to read Todd's review and as with any Michael Mann film I can't wait to see this. Since Miami Vice came out, there's been kind of a backlash against Mann-I'm guessing because people had their own take on what a Miami Vice movie should have been as opposed to Mann's "vision".
Still can't wait to see it - and for those of you with opinions about the HD Video look, please keep them to yourself unless you are an professional who has worked with both film cameras & high-end video cameras and thus has some legitimacy when making comparisons...because otherwise you come across as a moron.
But, Todd...what about on the whole? :)
Film is film, HD is not there yet. Someday, but not now. You don't have to be an authority on the technical aspect to be able to tell the difference, it's obvious to anyone who loves watching movies in an actual theatre. Can you imagine how great this film would have "looked" if it was shot on film? Yes, it would still have flaws but not the major gripe I have with it, which is the look. If "hyper-reality" means they wanted it look as if the eleven o"clock news was filming it, then fine, mission accomplished. It still looks substandard, and as much as you disagree and love your HD cameras, it's a fact.
I LOVED IT!! watched it twice already..I pretty much agree with everything Kurt said..The acting,music,script & camerwork were all aces..Mann is the last of the old school,do it my way or no way directors left in Hollywood.
Almost all of Mann's films get mediocre reviews upon release.I think years from now critics will see this in a different light just like his other work.
Kurt give Ali another go its a great film.Mann wouldn't tolerate any of the "awe hell no" shtick from Will Smith and we're rewarded with IMO his best performance to date.Mann really captured the essence of the times.Its not the typical bio-pic which is what people were expecting.
Limeyninja,
First you make a completely accurate remark about HD and film being different tools for different purposes, and then you end by saying "Film is dead".
What gives? Those two statements are completely contradictory!
I wouldn't say they're contradictory. They are different tools for different jobs. But that doesn't mean that one of those tools can't grow old and die. Film's like Jack Lalanne, and HD is like Tony Little, or maybe the Sham-wow guy. Jack Lalane was the shit back in the day, and while still going strong, should in theory die at any moment. And Tony Little is so loud, and vibrant and has a mullet, how can you really ignore him. You can't! Despite how much you hate him, he's never going away, until he's replaced by someone bigger and better.
Also, I was being an ass. I advocate both. I just joke that film is dead more than HD will fail, because there tends to be more elitism with film. I don't know if you've ever seen the Kodak magazine ads, where they have cinematographers making outrageous claims like "I treat film like I treat my wife, and I'd never cheat on either of them", and it makes me laugh. They are desperate to hold on to what is slowly going the way of the dodo. Not that I think it should be replaced. But I think, in the end, it will.
I agree. Film is a class act; HD is sleazy, cheap-looking, and beats up prostitutes for sport.
It's not the love story that I consider bloat, Kurt, it's the pointless subplots that have no bearing on anything. Why is Frank Nitti in this film? The mob subplot has absolutely no bearing on anything and could have been cleanly removed without anybody feeling its absence one bit. The proposed train robbery? That could pretty much go, too, which pains me to say because I LOVE Giovanni Ribisi and he doesn't work nearly enough and dropping that subplot means dropping Ribisi. If you can remove something from a film without anybody ever realizing that it's gone, then that element SHOULD be removed and there are LOTS of those elements in this one.
The mob subplot underscores Dillingers philosophy that he is in it for the short-term devil-may-care thrill and the lifestyle and the self-image, as opposed to Nitti/Capone who are in it for the longterm business.
Ribsi Rocks, and the planning of the train job is there if only to say that Dillinger didn't work in a vacuum and always had people lining his skill set up for things. It is the job he never gets to do, although is also immersed in it.
I liked the construction of atmosphere and place and time and the fact that dillinger is merely a speeding bullet in a big forest. I think I'm on to why the film was made that way. It's not ego or self-indulgence, it is creating the proper tone for the character and the time.
Worked for me.
Limeyninja,
You're right. Sadly film is on the way out, with exhibition eventually replacing all the film projectors with digital systems. Shamefully the majority of the public wont even notice the difference. However, film is not being replaced because digital is better but because it's cheap and the greed of the studios to cut corners just to make an extra buck. In the end it's the final product that suffers, and those who care about the medium. I dread the day I go to watch a classic movie in a theatre and it's projected digitally. It wont be the same experience.
Rhythm-X, well said. Short and sweet.
Theatres are pushing for digital just as much as studios, as digital is much cheaper to distribute and it will in turn dramatically cut shipping costs. It's not about being greedy, its about staying solvent.
And yes, the mob sub-plot should be in there, I understood its significance, but with the story as it stands it was perfunctory in the extreme. Nothing to ground it, nothing to flesh it out - just "You can't come in here no more" / "I hear I can't go in there no more" / "Yeah, well, we don't care for troublemakers" / "Huh, okay. Gee, sucks being me. Guess I'll go hang out with this sociopath over here". I really didn't get the various reminders you had to concentrate - on what? What did I miss? There was [i]nothing[/i] to distinguish [b]any[/b] of his gang from the others, to show what Dillinger might have valued about sticking with someone he knew was a lunatic blowhard... to say nothing of the guy who dies in the back of the car. Why am I supposed to care? "I reckon my time's up" - ummm, okay? Bye, then? When the actual death scene turned up I'd almost forgotten who he was (not that I can remember ever being actually [i]told[/i] who he was to begin with).
Sorry, just venting. There was so much of this I could have stuck in my review; me, I didn't find anyone in the cast bland, they all tried to some degree, but the script gave them practically nothing to work with. Internalising and using body language only go so far if there's nothing to be expressed beyond broad melodrama.
FYI, my formal review (may get published in these parts at some point, but for now: http://www.rowthree.com/2009/07/03/review-public-enemies/