Jul 01 2009
Miami Adult Entertainment: Public Enemies
The patter is pure Hollywood, but Depp and the vibrantly touching Cotillard give the relationship a potent intimacy. When Billie is brutalized by cops, it’s not Dillinger but Purvis who steps in to make the gallant gesture. Bale excels as this dapper G-man who uses his rank as chief lieutenant to FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (a superbly creepy Billy Crudup) to rise in the ranks. He’s just as ready for his close-up as Dillinger.
In the film’s most thrilling action sequence — the 1934 FBI raid on Dillinger and his gang at Wisconsin’s Little Bohemia Lodge — tommy-gun fire explodes like Fourth of July fireworks, and Purvis once again misses getting his man. That failure prods him to set the trap at the Biograph Theatre with the help of Anna Sage (Branka Katic), a Romanian prostitute. Though we know the outcome, the shooting is handled with pulse-quickening suspense, ending with Dillinger’s dying whisper. What did he say? Mann comes up with a guess, which you can believe or not.