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Review: Public Enemies Delivers…Eventually

Dave — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:36:53 +0000

The day after I saw Michael Mann’s newest crime flick, I went out and bought the non-fiction book it is based on, Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 by Bryan Burrough. Burrough originally pitched the idea of a fictionalized re-telling of the American mythic gangsters as a miniseries to HBO, who was thrilled and hired him on.

Burrough himself wrote a piece about this in Vanity Fair before Mann started filming, and he probably describes the origins of the book more succinctly than I could:

I first stumbled upon the idea of a project tracking John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson and all the major Depression-era bank robbers, I thought the subject was too big to be a single book. Instead, with a friend’s help, I pitched the idea as a miniseries to HBO. To my amazement, they bought it.
With the stroke of a pen, I found myself not only a screenwriter but an executive producer, along with Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca Films, of what was being billed as a major television event. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know the first thing about screenwriting. The only thing I knew about television was that Law & Order aired on Wednesdays at ten. Still, I plunged forward, buying up a stack of screenwriting texts and starting research on Dillinger and Bonnie & Clyde and their peers. About six months in, I realized the subject might indeed fit into one book, so I signed a book contract as well.
Needless to say, the book work went much better than the screenwriting. My scripts, I suspect, were very, very bad. Ishtar bad. HBO and Tribeca, bless their hearts, brought in one screenwriter, then another, to take over the writing, while I dived headlong into book work. It took another year or two, but in time the whole TV project died quietly.

Burrough went on to write the book, HBO gave him the rights to his project back, and Mann picked up the rights, originally for Leonardo DiCaprio to play Dillinger, but we all know that didn’t work out (and instead we get Shutter Island, which I hope to be a blessing).

Let me step aside at the end of this history lesson and say that Public Enemies works the majority of the time. Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, and Billy Crudup are just the beginning of a cast that does a great job of developing all these characters, making moments out of what they are given. When Mann and Cinematographer Dante Spinotti let the digital video of the Sony’s CineAlta F23 soar above flare-illuminated scenes, it’s beautiful and when the finale of the film hits, it feels complete, a bigger film than it actually is.

If you like Michael Mann movies: guys, crime, the girls who love the guys and maybe the crime: this movie will not disappoint.

But that doesn’t mean that the film is some over-arching success.

Issue One: Public Enemies should have been a miniseries. Michael Mann and Johnny Depp both elevate this story to the level of a sweeping romantic/crime drama, but it takes them both awhile to immerse the audience in the world we are supposed to care about. The film could have been called “The Fall Of John Dillinger” and I wouldn’t have expected to mine my own personal knowledge of who these people were and what they were doing.

Mann drops the audience into a jail-break engineered by Dillinger, and some hot-head guy named Charlie causes another guy to get killed. This must be really dramatic for everyone involved because it’s shot that way, but the movie never stops to tell you about anyone that isn’t John Dillinger, Billie Frechette (Cotillard), or Bale’s Melvin Purvis. One of my questions at the end of the movie was: Who was Steven Dorff in this film and when exactly did he die (answers, thanks to the internet: Homer Van Meter/In the woods)?

This is how the first half of the film plays, it starts and never stops to tell you what is going on. Some characters, like Dorff, get mentioned once or twice in hurried dialogue, and with the exception of Dillinger, who is obviously the vault man, and Red Hamilton (Jason Clarke), who drives the getaway car, none of the bank robbers have their specific jobs highlighted. Dillinger was a meticulous planner and members of the crew had their specific job and instructions. The movie doesn’t want to stop to explain this to you; it’s more interested in a love story and the formation of the FBI. If the book was turned into a miniseries, some of the interesting real-life figures relegated to Tommy Gun fodder in the film could have been fleshed out. As it is, as long as Dillinger stays alive, the rest are pretty much expendable.

Point Two: Digital video does not do well with handheld, moving, close-ups and this movie has a lot of those. The film was shot on the CineAlta F23 as opposed to the Thomson Viper Filmstream Camera used on Mann’s Miami Vice and Collateral. When they lock the camera down or allow it to Steadicam and dolly through the space, the depth of field and sharp focus achieved are beyond what’s possible with 35mm, sometimes even pushing it beyond the 16mm threshold (Hurt Locker, shot on 16mm, also has amazing depth of field, but Public Enemies outdoes it).

The problem is that digital video has serious motion blur problems, and together with the challenges of using period-piece lighting and no sweeping establishing shots, the camera frequently creates a kinetic action feeling by going handheld, like a war movie, when the guns are going off. Though Mann and Spinotti are pushing the format, this is not a movie you want to be towards the front of the theater for. I didn’t have any problems with pixilation, but the blurs in the handheld shots made me wish they’d just lock the damn F23 down.

Point Three: I got the distinct feeling that Mann cares more about the development of the FBI than the tragedy of John Dillinger. Luckily, Johnny Depp decided to take a break from playing real-life cartoon characters (the past few years have been Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka and Sweeney Todd) and reminds us all that Johnny Depp without makeup is still a force to be reckoned with. Marion Cotillard also manages to be completely believable and has that classic depression-era beauty to pull it off. By the time the interrogation of Billie starts taking place, Cotillard has the audience on her side, as they should be.

However, the movie feels more like a Michael Mann masterpiece when it’s sticking to history and showing us the development of what we’d consider modern policing techniques. Christian Bale’s Purvis doesn’t get to do much except watch his men die as J Edgar Hoover rides him for results, but when I had trouble telling the various Fedora-clad gangsters apart, I managed to pick up on the characters of the Officer’s pursuing them.

Dillinger’s character is kind of one-note until Clarke Gable literally gives him permission to die and the film feels complete. It’s all in Depp’s eyes, not in the script, but it feels like an arc. It’s just too bad that the film really pops when Purvis is on the hunt or Dillinger is dealing with the Mob.

The above three points aside, Public Enemies is undoubtedly up there with Heat on my list of awesome Michael Mann movies, but mostly because the good half of the film is the latter half, so everyone will be leaving the theater feeling good (that’s what summer movies are about, you know).

As soon as the film hits its stride with a beautifully shot, action-packed-yet-dramatic shoot out in a forest, it doesn’t let up on you and delivers exactly what it promised. You just have to bear with it for about an hour before you start getting your money’s worth.

Bale doesn’t know if we’re ever going to see another Batman movie

Liam — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:15:15 +0000

Last week we got a rather pessimistic article regarding Christopher Nolan’s return to the Batman franchise to direct Batman 3, and now Christian Bale has just given an interview that could cause some fanboys to leap head first off the nearest cliff. From Splash Page:

“I truly don’t know that we’re ever going to see another Batman movie,” Bale told MTV News.
“It would be purely that he would need to find a story that was good enough,” said Bale, “and if he couldn’t find that it wouldn’t happen.”
As it is, Bale said the idea of a Batman movie without Nolan wasn’t something he was willing to consider at this point, but reiterated that he wasn’t sure if audiences should ever expect a third film in the current franchise.
“I don’t even want to think about that,” said Bale. “I don’t know if there will be a third.”

Nolan has just started filming his next film, Inception, so I suppose Bale’s doubts are reasonable in a way as there has been very little movement on Batman 3 and there probably won’t be for a while. But saying that he doesn’t know that we’re ever going to see another Batman movie is a little dramatic. Warner Bros. have made 6 Batman films in the past 20 years with a variety of actors and directors. While the most recent adaptations have been most successful, I can see Warner Bros. making more Batman films in the future if Batman 3 never gets made.

Bale wants to prove it is possible to make a good third movie

Liam — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:14:51 +0000

Christian Bale recently spoke to TotalFilm and suggested that he wants to break the trend of third movies not living up to expectations (Spider-Man 3, X-Men 3).

“Will we do a third movie? It’s got to be the right story. You can’t make something like The Dark Knight and then come out with something disappointing.
“I would like it if people say, ‘You’ll never make a good third movie.’ I say, ‘OK, let’s make a third movie in that case, let’s prove them wrong. But that’s just me. The fact is, I have to! I’ve signed up! Chris doesn’t. So I’m in a bit of a fix if he says he doesn’t want to!”

With The Dark Knight getting universal praise and earning over $1 billion worldwide, making a better third film will be a huge challenge. I wouldn’t want to be in Christopher Nolan this time next year when the Batman 3 cogs start turning.

Bale also spoke about Heath Ledger’s Oscar win and the technology used in The Dark Knight. Read the whole interview here!

Christian Bale joining Prisoners

Liam — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:38:54 +0000

According to Risky Biz Blog Christian Bale may be joining Mark Wahlberg in a thriller called Prisoners.

Endeavor is putting together the package and plans on shopping it after a director is officially attached, with insiders stressing the project isn’t financed and saying the Wahlberg-Bale combo is fragile. This one’s all about making the numbers work for the players, who typically command hefty paydays

Bryan Singer (X-Men, X2, Superman Returns) is apparently interested in directing, although there has been no confirmation that he has signed up yet.

After his 6-year-old daughter and her friend are kidnapped, a small-town carpenter butts heads with a young, brash detective in charge of the investigation. The father is a Bible-reading, deer-hunting survivalist. The cop, meanwhile, can’t wait to get to the city. Feeling failed by the law, the father captures the man he believes responsible and begins to torture him in a desperate attempt to find out what he did with the girls, whom he’s convinced are still alive.

Public Enemies Trailer

Liam — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:59:43 +0000

The trailer for Michael Mann’s Public Enemies is now online. In the film charismatic bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) becomes the number one target of J. Edgar Hoover’s fledgling FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (Christan Bale).

This week has been a good week for Christian Bale trailers, with us getting a badass trailer for Terminator Salvation just yesterday.

New Terminator Salvation posters and stills

Liam — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:25:33 +0000

Yahoo! have tons of new images from Terminator Salvation for us to gawk at until we get a new trailer tomorrow. We also have a cool new poster featuring John Connor (Christian Bale), Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) and a Terminator.

Click the poster below to see the whole gallery!

Christian Bale has a Terminator on his face

Liam — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:55:50 +0000

The next cover of Empire magazine features a pretty cool image of Christian Bale and his best friend, the face grabbing Terminator. In this issue Empire have the first interview with Bale regarding Terminator Salvation, and a snippet can be seen below!

Empire: So can we talk about that on-set outburst and its subsequent internet proliferation?
Bale: No.

Ha!

Christian Bale says he ‘acted like a punk’

Liam — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:06:08 +0000

Christian Bale called radio show KROQ and spoke about his famous rant on the Terminator Salvation set for the first time.

“It’s been a miserable week for me,” Bale told hosts Kevin Ryder and Gene “Bean” Baxter. “Listen, I know I have a potty mouth; everybody knows this now. The thing that I really want to stress is I have no confusion whatsoever. I was out of order beyond belief. I was way out of order. I acted like a punk. I regret that.”
“There is nobody that has heard that tape that is hit harder by it than me. I make no excuses for it. It is inexcusable. I hope that that is absolutely clear.”
“In [T2] you will meet Sarah Connor. And she is in an insane asylum—why is she there? Because she is crazy. Now I play John Connor her son, and on the day that all of this happened, the scene that we were doing, I was trying to show a little of that in-the-blood craziness, and it went a little wrong… I took it way too far, and I completely mixed up fact and fiction. I’m half John Connor, I’m half Christian there.”
“I’ve not only talked with [DP Shane Hurlbut], we’ve resolved this completely. That very day we kept working for a number of hours. Listen when I’m saying I’m not coming back on that set if he’s still hired, it’s hot air. I don’t believe that. I have no intention of getting anybody fired.”
“And another thing: a lot of people that I was a bully to this guy. That’s an insult to Shane. He is a big guy. I couldn’t have bullied that guy if I tried. He’s much bigger than me—he’s an ex-friggin football player.”
Not that he doesn’t understand the public’s insatiable desire to hear—and mock and remix—the audio.
“Feel free to make fun of me at my expense; I deserve it completely.”

I think this was the best things Bale could have done. At least we now know that Bale isn’t angry 100% of the time and that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. I would have loved to have been in the room when he watched the remixes.

In other ‘Bale rant’ news, the BBC accidentally aired part of the rant uncensored this morning. Enjoy!

Angry Bale: The Remix

Liam — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:30:12 +0000

If you haven’t heard the audio of Christian Bale losing it on the set of Terminator Salvation then click here. If you already have then check out the great remix below.

Warning: Contains bad words

Christian Bale gets a bit angry on the Terminator Salvation set

Liam — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:58:14 +0000

We know Christian Bale has a temper after he was arrested before the European première of The Dark Knight last year, however now we have audio proof of his rage. The audio below begins with Bale getting angry at Terminator Salvation’s director of photography Shane Hurlbut, after he walked on set during filming of a scene. We can only judge from this audio as we don’t know how Bale was that day, whether he had been filming for a long time and was tired, or whether he was just having a bad day. However he exploded and even director McG couldn’t control him.

Listen below:

[Warning: contains f-word, threats of violence and a dodgy English/American accent from Bale]

Update: Assistant director and associate producer Bruce Franklin has given his thoughts. From E! Online:

“If you are working in a very intense scene and someone takes you out of your groove…It was the most emotional scene in the movie,” said Franklin. “And for him to get stopped in the middle of it. He is very intensely involved in his character. He didn’t walk around like that all day long. It was just a moment and it passed.
“This was my second movie with Christian, and it has always been a good experience with him,” added Franklin, who also worked with the actor on 2000’s Shaft. “He is so dedicated to the craft. I think someone is begging to make some noise about this, but I don’t think it’s fair. The art of acting is not paint by numbers, it’s an art form. “