Consumer Review - Public Enemies

Bank robberies and gun battles, how can you go wrong? Even though there was more to the movie than just robberies and shoot outs, Public Enemies provided a fair bit of both. Johnny Depp and Christian Bale were excellent and both portrayed their characters extremely well.

The cinematography was very well done and the scene locations, sets and costumes made you feel like you were right back in the 1930's. The dialogue and story carried itself well, and I was still impressed even though there was not as much action as one might expect.

The only downside I saw to the film was that there was no psychological insight or flashbacks to really get any details as to what kind of person John Dillinger really was or as to why he became a robber in the first place. That said, you didn"t need to have that background to make this film a success, I just thought it might have been interesting to learn more about the main character.

Maybe this gave him more of a mystique, since you did learn a lot just by the way he interacted with his cohorts, the media, his lover and the special agents trying to track him down. There was even a touch of humor in certain parts that I didn't expect, but did let you see another side of Mr. Dillinger. All in all, this is a crafty film that has solid directing and terrific acting.