PUBLIC ENEMIES

 The "Public Enemies" of the title are Baby Face Nelson and more specifically John Dillinger and Michael Mann's movie is about how Agent Melvin Purvis brought them down. Being a Michael Mann movie you know it's going to be stylish, action-packed and probably a cut above other real-life gangster films but it's not one of Mann's better pictures despite first-rate performances from Johnny Depp as Dillinger and Christian Bale as Purvis and some terrific set-pieces. The problem is Mann's always been a somewhat chilly director, a consummate professional more concerned with getting every detail right rather than fleshing out his films with empathetic characters, though perhaps the likes of John Dillinger, Hannibal Lecter and the gangsters of "Heat" could never be thought of as empathetic. Still, thanks to some extraordinary casting "Heat" wasn't just a great gangster/heist movie but a fill full of people you might actually relate to. "Public Enemies" doesn't offer us the same pleasures even if it does what it says on the tin and does it very well but then so many other films have done the same thing and done it better. Maybe what "Public Enemies" needed was to be about thirty minutes shorter, shot in black and white and with the likes of Mickey Rooney or Rod Steiger in the lead. Unfortunately those days are past. This certainly isn't a bad film, just a very impersonal one.