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Despite what you may have heard of this movie, know this: a Michael Mann movie is a Michael Mann movie.
It’s that simple. You either love him or you loathe him. Like Steven Soderbergh and other Hollywood contrarians, Michael Mann doesn’t make films for the general public. To appreciate a Mann movie is to have patience, because everything, every little detail, demands your undivided attention. Otherwise, you could miss something. With Public Enemies – Mann’s newest bank heist opus – that chasm he’s created among moviegoers grows ever wider.
Mann’s approach to cinema is not something many would deem “conventional.” Ironically, this is most evident in at the very beginning and very end of his movies. Like Mann’s last flick Miami Vice, Public Enemies forgoes a typical introduction. There are no opening credits, no title either. Instead, he plunks us in the middle of an old prison somewhere in rural Wisconsin, minutes before it lights up with machine gun blasts. Outside, A dark figure emerges from a car and with the help of some men, he springs his jailed comrades, guns blazing. The crooks make it to the getaway car unscathed, save for one who takes one in the back at the last second. Clinging desperately to his friend’s hand, the wounded inmate’s body drags along the dirt road. Slowly, his grip slips. Both men share a long, honest look before they part. The dead man rolls a few times, then fades into a cloud of dust.
All we know is the year: 1933, the beginning of the Great Depression.
If you’ve done your research, you’ll know the man who lead that famous jailbreak was America’s once poet laureate of bank robbers, he of the 13-month holdup spree that spurred the creation of the F.B.I., Mr. John Dillinger. We know very little of him when we meet him, only his insatiable appetite for stealing the banks’ money (and not the people’s). A 20th-century Robin Hood of sorts.
You won’t see long, mushy speeches and epic scores here. Nor will you see slow motion shots of bad guys flailing about in hails of bullets. You will see long moments of intense silence among characters, and not the typical bawdiness of Hollywood gangster pictures. You will hear broken up conversations in between scenes. Sometimes, you’ll wonder who “that” is and who “he” was. You will hear some dialogue clearly, and some you won’t. The point is Mann wants us to work to follow his movie. He’s never going to spell things out. This isn’t a biopic. That would simply be too easy for him. It’s more like a series of vignettes, each one goading us to prod deeper into this cold, dark, complicated man.
