Who´s in it?
Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Jason Clarke

What´s the plot?
From director Michael Mann, ‘Public Enemies’ tells the incredible true story of the legendary Depression-era bank robber, John Dillinger (Johnny Depp).

As Dillinger becomes a folk hero, J. Edgar Hoover makes him America’s first Public Enemy Number One - and sends his top agent, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to capture him.

However, as Dillinger and his gang outwit and outshoot Purvis’ men, a crew of expert gunfighters are drafted in and – along with orchestrating some epic betrayals – they finally close in on the infamous gangster.

If you liked ‘American Gangster’ and ‘The Departed’, you’ll love ‘Public Enemies’.

‘Public Enemies’ – showing at your local cinema.

BBFC Consumer Advice
Contains strong violence.
For more information on film classification, please click here

I knew as soon as the movie started that it was going to fail. Public Enemies depicts the legendary depression bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) as he robs banks, agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) is sent in to catch him.

What could have been an exciting and thought provoking story of a legendary criminal turns into a dull opaque piece of trash.

First off the camera work, though I don't mind hand held camera's (The film the Wrestler, which I loved) followed the same conventions but at least you could see what was happening.

Here I couldn't I felt dizzy and it irritated me. I wouldn't have minded had the rest of the movie been good, but the acting was terrible (making a top cast being wasted) and the action seqeunces boring.

The length of time that it was 139 minutes made it more unbearable to watch.

Mann has nothing to say about Dillinger's character and just portrays him for show. One of the most lazily directed and dull movies I've seen. I was disappointed.

This was pretty formulaic and dull but all the performances were good and Johnny Depp does his best with a fairly turgid, unconvincing script. Tough to squeeze all this into the time so it races along at quite a pace and this is its saving grace. Not enough time to get thoroughly bored and plenty of eye candy (Depp, Bale, Cotillard). Great to see Stephen Dorff in a small but impressive role. Watch it if you have time to kill and not a lot else to do but probably better to wait for the DVD as it may actually improve on the small screen.

Aside from the facts that Melvin Purvis did not shoot Pretty Boy Floyd or Baby Face Nelson and that they were both killed after John Dillinger, Public Enemies is grand entertainment. Johnny Depp and the film itself should both be in contention for Oscars next year. The photography, period costume and sets are all superb. It also adds much to the film having several key scenes filmed in the actual locations where these events took place. One thing the film doesn't really do more than touch on is the fact that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was a far bigger villain than John Dillinger. He ruled the FBI absolutely for 50 years and actually forced Melvin Purvis to resign shortly after the killing of Dillinger due to Hoover's resentment of Purvis becoming a celebrity and his (Hoover's) not being in the spotlight. Hoover then spent the rest of Purvis's life working to discredit him and even preventing him from gaining several other jobs he was applying for.