A NOT-SO-GREAT ESCAPE

Take a look at your household camcorder right now. Go on, it's fine. It's that silver thing you use to capture funny videos of your cat singing and your kid brother running into a table. Now, everyone can agree that digital video, the format you are currently using on the aforementioned cat videos, really has no place in a multimillion-dollar historical epic starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.

Well, director Michael Mann is clearly not on the same page.

Mann was largely able to escape the downsides of using digital video, as opposed to 35 or 70 mm film stock, in 2004's sublimely gritty Collateral. But he falls prey to the faults of the format in his latest film, Public Enemies, a period piece about the hunt for "Public Enemy No. 1" John Dillinger (Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street) by Melvin Purvis (Bale, Terminator Salvation), an agent in the freshly created Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Alas, the quality of the image itself does make an immense difference in the viewing experience, and suffice to say, Public Enemies feels exceedingly plastic. Digital video, notoriously bad at capturing motion, does lend an intimacy and measure of roughness to the action scenes. But overall, it cannot conjure nearly the scale, the drama or the heft the film needs to truly sear into the mind and stand out amid the countless other charismatic-bank-robber-chased-by-cops movies, including Mann's own masterpiece, Heat.

Considering all of the raw ingredients Mann has to work with, there is little excuse for creating such a disposable, stiff product. First, there is the societal backdrop itself: The events play out during the Great Depression, perhaps the singular turning point in 20th century America. And Dillinger is mythologized by an adoring public who views him as a hero, which could allow Mann to comment upon the nature of gangster worship itself.

Instead, Mann watches these ideas slide away and occasionally grapples with them here and there, but sticks more to hearty helpings of violence. Unsurprisingly, the shooting and the killing and the bloodletting gain little significance. We see large firefights with Tommy Guns and Winchester rifles, but we care little for the consequences and simply wait for Dillinger to die.

Again, Mann's shaky handheld digital camera only captures what seems like a shooting match between handsome men with toy guns - not a grand struggle between the forces of law and chaos in the Great Depression.

Mann also makes the curious decision to put Bale's character on a leash. While Depp is allowed to wring out every ounce of the legendary Dillinger charm as he seduces and gambles about town, Bale is given little chance to perform any emotional exposition. Purvis, a straight, square lawman, is troubled about compromising his morals (J. Edgar Hoover was a bad, bad man to work for) to capture Dillinger, but his internal conflict is allocated little screen time.

Not to belabor the comparison, but Heat allowed each character a generous arc that culminated to form a more meaningful ending. Public Enemies has a variety of sparks, but they fizzle and die away. Maybe it was out of a misguided admiration for historical accuracy, but the lack of attention paid to Bale, a critically and commercially successful star, is extremely puzzling.

Text at the conclusion of the film informs us Purvis left the FBI only one year after Dillinger died and took his own life in 1960. The historical Purvis must have struggled mightily in his personal life, and Bale would be the ideal actor to portray this struggle - his brooding ambivalence on how to fight evil without succumbing to it carried The Dark Knight. There had to be something there, but Mann fails to develop that aspect.

For such an immensely talented director, Mann always hinges his story on the fragile, often bloody bond between two males. Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro were brilliant in Heat. Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx were awful in Miami Vice. Foxx and Tom Cruise were just right in Collateral. The obscenely talented Depp and Bale, however, simply cannot create any heat. Mann, the seemingly perfect director for this story, should become Public Enemy No. 1 for that alone.

vmain13@umd.edu

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars