Escape to the Movies: Public Enemies
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
I didn't hate Miami Vice because it was poorly made, shot, or had awful gun fights and dialogue. In fact, it had none of those things, as I recall. What I didn't like about Miami Vice was that there was no one I was rooting for, and thus the pacing kind of dragged. To this day, I can't recall what the plot consisted of, and I watched a decent portion of it up to right before they decided to meet the cartel. But here I felt all that great artistic technique served to keep me at a distance from the whole thing, so that by the point I got to the cartel thing, I was hoping they'd get some laced cocaine and die. And then I left, because if you hate the protagonists that much, you probably shouldn't be watching the filmm_jim said:
Last of the Mohicans on the other hand, had a number of things going for it, including a great story, and Daniel Day-Lewis, who is one of the world's most talented actors.
This review put we in a weird position, every Michael Mann film he showed I didn't particularly like. But I loved both LA Confidential and The Untouchables. And if its really better then the latter it should be worth seeing, both Bale and Depp are pretty awesome so it should be pretty good
You know, I did, too. I mean, it wasn't poetry, or anything, but it was far better than I expected it to be. And personally I thought Heat was about 20 minutes too long, but overall, when Mann is on his game, it's breathtaking.sneak_copter said:
Don't think I'll catch this one in the theaters, but looks like it's absolutely worth watching. Hard to resist the one-two acting punch of Bale and Depp.
No, no, no. I normally agree with most of what MovieBob says, but this time, no.
First: Public Enemies is literally unwatchable. The hand-held camera moves around so much for virtually the entire movie that I could not associate characters with faces, or truly see what was going on in some action scenes. Whenever gun flares or camera flashes are on the screen, the entire visual starts flashing white as if to induce an epileptic seizure. By the end of the movie, my eyes literally hurt from trying to stabilize a perspective so that I can see who's saying what. Apart from Christian Bale and Johnny Depp, I found myself hard-pressed to recognize any facial characteristics of most of the other actors.
Second: The script is actually pretty shitty. I don't know where MovieBob got the notion that Michael Mann injects brains into his movies anyway. His only good movie was Collateral. In Public Enemies, I did not know what was going on half of the time. I understand the underlying message is about a man struggling to keep up with a changing world and his adaptable adversaries, the FBI, but the "formation of the FBI" was really just a scene where one administrator gets his ass handed to him in court, and another where Bale's character explains to some policemen how the "Bureau" will catch Dillinger. The love interest was there for the first 45 minutes and then disappears for most of the movie. It seemed as though Johnny Depp's character fell in love with her because he just felt like it, making the whole relationship a token notion that such a gangster must have been a chivalrous, romantic man. In the end, when his message reaches her, it's some vague meme between the two of them that has no relevance to the audience, because it was an undeveloped relationship. Christian Bale, supposedly a co-star, is in the actual film for about 20 minutes total, and we know nothing about his background, nor do we see any development or change in his character at all. He's just another law-enforcer.
Third: This deserves its own category because it is so stupid it reminded me of the Happening. There's a scene where Dillinger walks right into a police station, because his sun-glasses are just enough to hide the face of "public enemy #1." While in the police station, he sees a door that says "Investigation Bureau - Dillinger Squad," and strolls right the fuck in. So, he's walking around in a room full of his own pictures and those of his associates, and the works. As he explores this alcove, he walks into a group of cops that were listening to a radio relay of some game. He asks for the score. They tell him the score. He walks right the fuck out. So, to recap, the cops that were literally on Dillinger's case for years, looking at his pictures and studying everything about him, did not recognize him when he walks right in to the fucking room they were in. That is stupidity that belongs in an Ed Wood movie. There was absolutely no relevance to that scene whatsoever, and it did the movie harm. What the fuck was Michael Mann thinking?
What was good about the movie:
Production - I felt like I was in the 1930's. Thoroughly appreciated the care that went into the costumes, accents, detail and setting.
Sound Design - I've never heard guns sound so good in a movie before. The shootout in the forest sounded like it was happening two rows down from my seat.
Dialogue - The characters, especially Johnny Depp's, were clever and sharp in speech. They all did a great job with their accents, which beefed up and romanticized everything they said. The court scene with Dillinger's Lawyer had a great monologue.
---
Conclusion: crap. Avoid this movie.
First: Public Enemies is literally unwatchable. The hand-held camera moves around so much for virtually the entire movie that I could not associate characters with faces, or truly see what was going on in some action scenes. Whenever gun flares or camera flashes are on the screen, the entire visual starts flashing white as if to induce an epileptic seizure. By the end of the movie, my eyes literally hurt from trying to stabilize a perspective so that I can see who's saying what. Apart from Christian Bale and Johnny Depp, I found myself hard-pressed to recognize any facial characteristics of most of the other actors.
Second: The script is actually pretty shitty. I don't know where MovieBob got the notion that Michael Mann injects brains into his movies anyway. His only good movie was Collateral. In Public Enemies, I did not know what was going on half of the time. I understand the underlying message is about a man struggling to keep up with a changing world and his adaptable adversaries, the FBI, but the "formation of the FBI" was really just a scene where one administrator gets his ass handed to him in court, and another where Bale's character explains to some policemen how the "Bureau" will catch Dillinger. The love interest was there for the first 45 minutes and then disappears for most of the movie. It seemed as though Johnny Depp's character fell in love with her because he just felt like it, making the whole relationship a token notion that such a gangster must have been a chivalrous, romantic man. In the end, when his message reaches her, it's some vague meme between the two of them that has no relevance to the audience, because it was an undeveloped relationship. Christian Bale, supposedly a co-star, is in the actual film for about 20 minutes total, and we know nothing about his background, nor do we see any development or change in his character at all. He's just another law-enforcer.
Third: This deserves its own category because it is so stupid it reminded me of the Happening. There's a scene where Dillinger walks right into a police station, because his sun-glasses are just enough to hide the face of "public enemy #1." While in the police station, he sees a door that says "Investigation Bureau - Dillinger Squad," and strolls right the fuck in. So, he's walking around in a room full of his own pictures and those of his associates, and the works. As he explores this alcove, he walks into a group of cops that were listening to a radio relay of some game. He asks for the score. They tell him the score. He walks right the fuck out. So, to recap, the cops that were literally on Dillinger's case for years, looking at his pictures and studying everything about him, did not recognize him when he walks right in to the fucking room they were in. That is stupidity that belongs in an Ed Wood movie. There was absolutely no relevance to that scene whatsoever, and it did the movie harm. What the fuck was Michael Mann thinking?
What was good about the movie:
Production - I felt like I was in the 1930's. Thoroughly appreciated the care that went into the costumes, accents, detail and setting.
Sound Design - I've never heard guns sound so good in a movie before. The shootout in the forest sounded like it was happening two rows down from my seat.
Dialogue - The characters, especially Johnny Depp's, were clever and sharp in speech. They all did a great job with their accents, which beefed up and romanticized everything they said. The court scene with Dillinger's Lawyer had a great monologue.
---
Conclusion: crap. Avoid this movie.
I liked the movie, this review wasn't bad. But the minute plus he did complaining about the summer movies was a bit off putting. So what if he is a critic, that sort of thing isn't as much criticism as it is bitter rage.
Edit: Also, a little nit pick but the movie does slip into grainy black and white shots for some scenes.
Edit: Also, a little nit pick but the movie does slip into grainy black and white shots for some scenes.
Thanks for the clarification...slopeslider said:
My knowledge of guns consists entirely of what you get out of the average FPS, some WW2 books, and History channel specials.
And you're not "that nerd guy"...you're "that gun nut"...which is a huge improvement because it makes you sound threatening.
Oh that thing?
I've never really seen it in use, aside from it being the staple of the Half-life 2 armory.
I wonder which movie MovieBob was watching, cause I went to see Public Enemies yesterday, and it is the only movie EVER, that I have seen in the cinema, where I have felt that I would not miss a thing if I fell asleep. It was incredibly boring. The acting was good, but the movie was bad. Not worth my money, and I'd give it about one or two out of five stars.
Christ moviebob, you know a lot of people LIKED Star Trek, T4, Wolverine and Transformers.
I see it similar to how you said Miyamoto with his "3rd way" idea is to help keep fresh bloodin the Video game market. What was once considered pop culture or cult classic are now being more accessible to the Mainstream audience. This is a GOOD thing. Without fresh blood with new ideas, the franchises become boring and repetitive.
As Kirk said to Scotty (ST3) "Young minds, fresh ideas. Be tolerant."
I see it similar to how you said Miyamoto with his "3rd way" idea is to help keep fresh bloodin the Video game market. What was once considered pop culture or cult classic are now being more accessible to the Mainstream audience. This is a GOOD thing. Without fresh blood with new ideas, the franchises become boring and repetitive.
As Kirk said to Scotty (ST3) "Young minds, fresh ideas. Be tolerant."
It's not making it accesible to new fans that he's saying, its the bad filmaking people have gotten used to and have accepted as normal. It's letting directors and writers off the hook by justifying every negative in an action movie by saying 'It's an action movie, what do you expect?' and 'It's just giving people what they want!'. We all know of great action movies that dont rely Solely on 'xplosions and slow motion to entertain, yet we just let every action movie off the hook by some low artificial standard the movie industry has forced on us. Why shouldn't they put a little thought into plot loopholes, timelines, 2d and 3d characters, emotions, etc? Obviously they cant rely on them but the inclusion will help slowly raise people's standards in movies, moving them from sheep to an intelligent force producers must reckon with before making yet another 'Tough guy ecorts some weakling' movie. Why shouldn't they put a little more effort into 300 MIL blockbusters other than deciding which tough guy to hire and how much money to throw at CGI Studios?patch5129 said:
Im just kinda tired of these movies, my brother is always Renting the newest ones from Redbox, I could've watched many, yet I usually just retire to my Game system right next to the tv he's watching. They just dont motivate me anymore.
(I did like Taken, if he rents that I'll watch with him)
[/rambling]
Oh well. No hard feelings to any of you here, I just needed to get that off my chest.
I have to disagree with Bob on this one. The decision to shoot on digital was a bad one. It works on certain shots, the scene being light by a flare comes to mind. It would have been virtually impossible to shoot that scene with merely a flare if it was shot on film. But for other, more intimate scenes, the high frame rate and the hand held camera work make the film look like an amateur movie. Early in the scene in which Dillinger first meets his girl, he speaks to one of his cohorts, the color temperature changes from shot to shot despite it being played as the same light source. I can't help but think that Public Enemies would have looked better with at least a steady cam and shot at 48fps (or as close to it as the camera could get to).
The sound levels were all over the place too. Admittedly this could have been a problem from the theater I went to (rather likely seeing as how there was a small piece of trash on the gate of the projector through the entire thing). Voices would go up and down mid sentence. One scene had a clearly audible air conditioner running in the background.
It could have been that I was too distracted by these admittedly forgettable mistakes to really enjoy the movie. But the nail that seals the Public Enemies' coffin was that I didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't care for Dillinger who seemed to force himself onto Billie it what can only be described as 'rape' with out the sex. I did not care for Christian Bale's character whose name I didn't even bother to remember because he was such a small player in the movie. The only fun I had were the scenes in which Dillinger temps fate by walking into the office of the very police force that is chasing him and asks for the score of the baseball game.
The sound levels were all over the place too. Admittedly this could have been a problem from the theater I went to (rather likely seeing as how there was a small piece of trash on the gate of the projector through the entire thing). Voices would go up and down mid sentence. One scene had a clearly audible air conditioner running in the background.
It could have been that I was too distracted by these admittedly forgettable mistakes to really enjoy the movie. But the nail that seals the Public Enemies' coffin was that I didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't care for Dillinger who seemed to force himself onto Billie it what can only be described as 'rape' with out the sex. I did not care for Christian Bale's character whose name I didn't even bother to remember because he was such a small player in the movie. The only fun I had were the scenes in which Dillinger temps fate by walking into the office of the very police force that is chasing him and asks for the score of the baseball game.
This movie doesn't look like there is much more there besides the few gun scenes shown in the preview. Of course I am going to see it, but I don't think its gonna be wow or anything. And the fact that you hated on Revenge of the Fallen and Star Trek, the two best movies of the year while praising Evil Dead Drag Me to Hell is quite hilarious.