At the Movies with Fatwayne

What can you say about Johnny Depp? He has this amazing ability to become fully absorbed with his characters. He can go from the swishy swashbuckler Captain Jack Sparrow to the crazed demon barber Sweeney Todd in the blink of an eye! You never know what he will look or act like from film to film. To further fortify my argument, can you remember Willy Wonka and Eward Scissorhands? How unlikely were these roles? This man can portray just about any character that he chooses. He is also extremely durable with 58 films to his credit!

Lucky for us, his newest effort is playing the depression era bank robber John Dillinger. Depp gives his character just enough swagger and self assurance to be completely believable in the role.

Set in 1933 he is about the business of robbing banks. Communications were relatively feeble, there were no interstate highways, no federal laws pertaining to crossing state lines in the commission of a crime and no central police force to track down criminals. In the movie Dillinger brags to his comrades “they ain’t tough enough, smart enough or fast enough. I can hit any bank I want, any time”.

Dillinger along with his cronies are robbing banks with seeming impunity. The public starts to regard him as a sort of folk hero since he never takes money from “Joe Public” but only the banks. At this time in history, banks are not too popular with people in general since they had recently crashed and everyone lost all of their savings.

There is a fledgling Federal agency called the FBI that is just establishing itself  under the tutelage of J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover wants to further empower his agency and decides to go after John Dillinger, Baby Faced Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd and Alvin Karpis in order to make a name for himself. He even makes Dillinger the first Public Enemy Number One!

Hoover appoints one of his up and coming agents, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to head the task force. Hoover and Purvis take the FBI into the modern world of crime fighting using wire taps, manpower, cooperation between agencies and brutal interrogation techniques. They are determined to get their man!

There is a love story amid all of the blazing tommy guns and shootouts. John meets and pursues a woman named Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) and they fall in love. He pledges to take care of her and this very nearly does him in since the Feds know of this relationship and are watching her.

The rest of the movie treats us to the pursuit of John Dillinger by Melvin Purvis and his men. There are lots of gun fights and action to entertain us thoroughly. Most of us with a even a fleeting knowledge of folklore and history know what happens to John after he is betrayed by the infamous “Lady in Red”.

This is a period piece and the wardrobe accurately and delightfully depicts the costumes of the time. There are beautiful antique cars everywhere and the atmosphere of the film certainly captures the aura of the early Thirties.

This is a very enjoyable movie if you can get past the violence. The acting is superb with the minor exception of Bale’s annoying accent. Johnny Depp does it again! Just when I think he can not get any better he goes ahead and tops himself.

I have posted quotes from this movie at the following site: http://www.tvmoviequotes.com/publicenemies.htm

Rating  – R  -

Fatwayne’s Rating  –  -