Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Public Enemies is the latest movie from Heat director Michael Mann. This is a gangster movie about John Dillinger and his crew during the height of their crime spree. I thought it was pretty good although it could have been a little shorter. I also thought it tried too hard to make Dillinger look like a good guy when the truth is that several people died because of his actions. I have no sympathy for criminals who point guns at people.

Johnny Depp stars as Dillinger and Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis, the real life man who took him down. The rest of the all-star supporting cast includes many familiar faces, including Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover, Stephen Dorff (Blade) and Rory Cochrane (Dazed and Confused), plus a cameo by Channing Tatum (G.I. Joe) as Pretty Boy Floyd. Oscar winner Marion Cotillard plays Depp's love interest.

The movie begins with a prison break involving Dillinger and continues through his exploits of bank robbing and womanizing until he meets Cotillard and is smitten. With all that going on, Hoover and his federal agents led by Bale are hot on the trail of Dillinger and his cohorts. I liked the detail used to show the modern techniques of the day in how they tracked the mobsters across the country. However, you should already know how this story will end.

John Dillinger is portrayed as an overly confident ladies man who enjoys boldly toying with police, but he's treated like the hero of the story. He only shoots back in self defense and I don't remember it ever showing him outright killing anyone. There's also a line that is supposedly attributed to Dillinger when he's robbing a bank and refuses to take a man's money because he was only there for the bank's money. I got the impression that the movie was trying to portray Dillinger as not such a bad guy, though some of his cohorts were clearly shown as bloodthirsty killers.

I was pretty impressed by the action in this movie, because there is a lot of gunplay with gangsters spraying tommy guns all over the place. Some of the action sequences were filmed in the actual locations where the real thing took place, including a forest lodge, so that added to the realism. The cinematography was interesting with all the close-ups and the action was portrayed realistically without a bunch of overdone CGI or stunts. Some people have complained about the way this movie was filmed, but I liked it.

What really struck me about this story was how much differently things would play out if Dillinger was robbing banks today. In real life, some agents walked up behind him as he was coming out of a theater and gunned him down in front of everyone. If that were to happen today, all those agents would have been fired and the ACLU would have gone nuts with lawsuits against anyone involved. It would have been a total disaster if that happened today. However, back then the agents were considered heroes of the day.

If you like gangster movies or true crime stories, you'll get a kick out of Public Enemies. It's got enough shooting and wisecracking to appease fans of the genre, even if it is a little too sympathetic to the villains it portrays.

Recommended: Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older