Depp and Mann Fued Created Public Enemies Mess

As the title might suggest, thinks have got pretty bad for director Michael Mann and lead actor Johnny Depp over their clanger of a blockbuster Public Enemies. During production the two key figures on set were only communicating through a studio exec, as Depp seethed at Mann’s ‘chaotic’ film making style.

After viewing the final product, although I was not on set, I would have to take Depp’s side. The final product was quite frankly shocking. From a director who had put togther some entertaining and stylish flicks such as Last of Mohicans, Heat, Ali and Collatoral, this was a real mess. None of his films are masterpieces, but he has shown that he can work with big names and get the job done.

With Mohicans, Mann proved that he could put together a period piece with some complex battle scenes. I don’t know whether he got bored with standard cinematic deep focus period techniques or if he wanted to try something new, but he picked the wrong film to do it with. Mann is staring down the barrel as Public Enemies drags itself over the 70mill mark bearing the wieght of a 100mill price tag.

The problem is that it really didn’t look like a 100mill flick. The shadow happy lighting and shallow focus from the tight end gave us little hints we were in the 1930s. The film was effectively a biop of John Dillinger and if Mann was trying to represent the gritty realism by adopting a Cassavettes style, actor leading camera blend of performance enhancing depth of field with reaction shot focus pulls, it did not work.

The autopsy of this freakish alien of visual style has to begin with the script… it was terrible. They managed to make Depp boring. Mann took co-credit for this abomination with Ronan Bennett, who has mainly written for TV although penned Face in ’97 which was passable and the Stephen Fry adaptation Lucky Break. It was a series of cliches and paradoxes which left Depp slightly confused as to why he was on screen.

Depp under Burton would have been searching within these terrible lines for a reason. He would have deduced that with the entire country trying to capture Dillinger he would be paranoid in the extreme, he would be reliant on cliches to get him through conversations, he would have had an edge. The poor script would have been turned inside out to create something interesting.

But no, Depp just wanted off the screen. The script was disjointed with the opening 20 minutes seeming like an eternity of disconnected short, pointless scenes. How can you make 1930s tommy-gun infested bank robbery boring? Mann found the answer. You have flat lighting, inconsistent visual style, clunky dialgoue and two arguable plot holes [see if you can guess] then combine it with a fued between the director and lead.

Dillinger as a character fell in between the blaze of glory gangster and sensitive human. He was luc-warm and Depp actually failed to make decisions about the character, probably not helped by his fued with Mann. The direct cinema style adopted at the beginning was thrown away as was the focus on story. Yes the cars, clothes, architecture was authentic but that is not what is engaging about the Dillinger era.

There was little or no reference to the public’s attitude to Dillinger. There was little or no reference to the depression itself. I have read critics on Rottentomatoes.com stating that it beatifully captured the essence of 1930s America, it really didn’t. It had me scratching my head questioning why the story was being told. The only slightly titilating parts came with the conflict of interests surrounding the formation of Hoover’s FBI,and the ultimate assasination of Dillinger.

Bale was mediocre, seemed to pass the ball on opprtunities to run with his character’s internal conflict between ambition, duty and vengence. There was a golden opportunity missed for Bale and Depp to swap places. Dilinger after finding love begins questioning his life of violence and its affect on the common man where agent Purvis [Bale] through vengence and ambition becomes what Dillinger was originally.

That would be a creative representation of law and order in 1930s America, in desperate times the line between law man and public enemy becomes perferated. This was illustrated by the Texan agents that were brought in to get Dillinger, which conicided with Purvis’ team’s methods becoming increasingly dark. However this sub-plot was endemic of the entire film in that it lacked atmosphere; there was something empty and hollow about the film.

There was a lack of depth at every level. The depth of field, the flat lighting, the lack of character development, the stagnent sound and the God-awful treatment of the film, which made it look like an HBO for TV film. It felt like it was striving after ‘The Assassination of Jesse James’ in its  struggling with the myth and reality of a historically ambiguous figure. But where Robert Ford and his paper backs were used as a narrative parody, the newspaper accounts of a daring Dillinger were thrown away and the real thing lacked an edge.

It is doubtful that Mann will be thrown a budget like this again, not necessarily because the film will only reach mid 80s to 90million in the box office, but because he didn’t play by the rules. Where Jesse James did something special Mann has missed the mark and left a confused, semi biop that has left a bad taste in the mouth of the director and lead actor.