Review: 'Public Enemies' Shows 1-Dimensional Dillinger

'Public Enemies' (R)(out of four)

"Public Enemies" takes the cat-and-mouse game, overdoes it, and in the meantime shoots any effort of character studies full of holes as big as Swiss cheese. While Michael Mann's over-bloated epic of John Dillinger was intended to be a summer blockbuster, it ends up being 140 minutes of pure shoot 'em-up action, forsaking any new realizations into what might have made Public Enemy No. 1 tick.

Its sepia tone pallor and an opening sequence red-flag the audience that this is, in fact, 1933, the fourth year of the Great Depression. It's also the beginning of a notorious 13-month crime spree of the farm boy from Indiana-turned-career criminal who had a knack for robbing banks and eluding the FBI.

His exploits gained him rock-star status in the 1930s, and with Depp as Dillinger, it's believable as to why. "Mister, take me with you," a farm woman who has harbored the criminal says to Dillinger as he leaves.

While Mann's direction and script leaves little room for character study, Depp seems hell-bent on having the audience get a glimpse inside the head of the complex tough guy.

Depp's careful choices as the sly but steady Dillinger make the drama more than it might have been in someone else's less capable hands. Depp doesn't drip Capt. Jack Sparrow in Dillinger attire, but makes him more the thinking man's bank robber, someone who shows his sensitive side while wooing hatcheck girl Billie Frechette ("La Vie en Rose" Oscar winner Marion Cotillard).

But as quickly as he can tell his hard-knock boyhood story that would point any therapist to the root of Dillinger's badness: "My ma died when I was 4. My pa beat the hell out of me but he didn't know no better," he can smash a bystander's forehead into a door for interrupting his conversation. "Dillinger was no softy, see?" Depp says between the lines.

But for Mann's money it's more about Tommy guns and authentic Model A Fords packed with powerful V8s. "I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars and you. What else you need to know?" says Dillinger. Nothing, according to Mann.

When Christian Bale enters the picture as agent Melvin Purvis, whose career is riding on the capture of Dillinger, the cat-and-mouse game is off and running and into a constant repetition. The chase is reminiscent of the film "Catch Me If You Can" with Leonardo DiCaprio as con-man Frank Abagnale keeping Tom Hanks' dedicated agent Carl Hanratty one step behind him.

There's not much new ground broken in "Public Enemies": Purvis wants Dillinger, Dillinger wants to stay out of prison, or more pointedly, the electric chair. Most novice history hounds know the outcome of the story, so there isn't much of an element of surprise at how things end up.

The closest to a personal character study we ever see is Cotillard's vulnerability as Dillinger's doll who will protect her man at any cost.

There's more going on here than the power struggle in front of the camera between Purvis and Dillinger, an underlying tension that looms like cap-gun smoke over the crowd. It's that of frustrated actors who may have wanted to unleash a bit more of their inner gangsters than this film would allow. And that's just about the biggest crime committed in "Public Enemies."