Public Enemies

"Public Enemies" simply feels different than all the other gangster pictures that have come before it.
Johnny Depp plays iconic bank robber John Dillinger, but he doesn't talk or act like a movie gangster. There's no complicated back story, no tale of daddy issues and woe. He's calm, cool, calculating and quietly charming.
Depp gives you a real sense of what Dillinger might have been like and why women dipped their dresses in his blood after he came to his unfortunate end outside the Biograph theater.

Christian Bale does excellent work as well as Melvin Purvis, the G-Man assigned to hunt down Dillinger. Bale is clearly a supporting character but provides a nice counterweight to Dillinger's band of bank robbers.

Oscar winner Marion Cotillard doesn't have much to do as Dillinger's girlfriend. There's no grand "Bonnie and Clyde" romance. They're not even really a couple. They're just two people thrown together by their own needs, not a need for each other.

Director Michael Mann's obsessive attention to detail makes this feel more naturalistic than your usual a Hollywood blockbuster.
Even the gun battles pop and crackle with a brutal realism and a spark that makes them feel fresh again.
At times it seems like the moviemakers get a little too wrapped up in the details, and it seems like you're watching the biggest budgeted History Channel special ever.
But it's refreshing to see a big summer blockbuster that aims squarely at your head, even if it sometimes misses your heart.

"Public Enemies:" B+