Public Enemies. Almost a great movie.

Is Public Enemies the biggest collection of a wasted opportunity ever? Think about it. What could be one of the better time piece re-interpretations. 1920s America was kicking. Prohibition, bootlegging, automatic weapons, corruption, what my racist uncle called "the good ol' days" add to that a bank robber lead character avoiding the cops with shootouts and getaways, he's banging broads giving money back, being loved and feared. Then you have the struggle of the lawman trying to arrest this guy while his life is tattered and the pressure from an iconic figure like J. Edgar Hoover. This time line touches on what could be the only time America was interesting with what could have been its last great outlaw.

Ok key to any movie ever leading actor. Johnny Depp. Bang! A 10/10 casting job for a charismatic anti-hero bank robber cultural phenomenon on the lamb. Beyond handsome almost to a devastating amount. Beyond likable. If it wouldn't make me throw up on myself I'd say he could be today's Luke Jackson. I'm not passionately in love with Depp as an actor but i do enjoy him as a movie star and it pains me to see that he made a movie with Jolie and its coming out this winter, you'll never guess it but she is playing a spy or something, really mixing it up for her. its about time Angelina Jolie played a role where she can hide any sort of depth in her character and keep it under the guise of "mysterious" when in all actuality we are dealing with a case of a dull fucking gorgon. She is like 48 now can't she let someone else be a spy? Her uterus is about to die and she is supposed to be seducing Johnny Depp?

So you have an immensely likable main character so what better to get with that then an unlikable frozen upset and miserable law man who at times seems over his head and wrought with pressure and a crumbling personal life and who better to cast for this than anyone but Christian Bale. Ok fine Christian Bale could work, the movie will be 70% focused on Depp anyways so Bale despite what i would call a limited skill set. Now clearly I'm not sold on Bale as an actor, I believe he could be the most overrated actor currently making major movies. Which is actually the proper use of overrated and not just a saying. Lots of people call Vin Diesel overrated but when no one rates him highly what is the fucking point? He can't be widely known as shit and still be overrated. Anyone could fall into his roles and no one would notice. Batman Begins does not get axed if Bale doesn't sign, in fact it probably would have been better with out him. I'll get into how thoroughly replaceable Bale is in movies in a post in November or so but in a big surprise no one would give a fuck if he died and the only great thing he's ever done was punish a director of photography over his unprofessionalism in a movie about a robot revolution in the future where he sends a guy to go into the past to cream pie his mom.

Ok two strong actors to play cop and robber. Now to add a director, and here is where i give the most slices of pizza to on the fail pie. With a movie like this you need a sure thing director who has made massively successful movies before. So when they put this in Michael Mann's hands I think the producers dropped the ball. But maybe it wasn't his fault. Michael Mann, ok, not Fellini, not Eastwood but this isn't supposed to be a piece of art. Its supposed to be a great GREAT movie movie. Think Shawshank Redemption. Movie movie seems like a term that I know exists but I absolutely can't prove means anything to anyone but myself at this moment, but I'm sure you guys can follow this.

Anyways a movie with a great setting and cast of characters is absolutely a movie that Michael Mann is very capable to turn into something fantastic. Last of the Mohicans The Insider and Heat are perfect examples of how this movie could have gone. The Insider being in a distant 3rd place but is a good movie, but when compared to two titans it clearly takes the bronze. Heat is one of the best crime dramas of all time and The Last of the Mohicans to me gave birth to several awesome things
1. the career of Daniel Day Lewis
2. war movies set in precolonial times from non-European viewpoints
3. Madeline Stowe's cheekbones.




Now many of you smell the pending backlash against Mann and deservingly so. If you look at Mann's filmography it has a lot of movies that should have been better than they were. He could very well be the king of "eh" The Kingdom, Collateral, Public Enemies, Miami Vice, Ali are some of the biggest let downs of my life. Even Hancock should have been better then it was and it should have sucked, he somehow skewed lower than suck. Michael Mann has taken some of the best movie premises in recent memory and directed them into being average flat forgettable flops of shit.

On top of poor directing instincts he has attached himself to some miserable failures of projects that could have killed anyone's career and even the best of creative teams behind the scenes couldn't rescue, and was a no win scenario for the actors in the roles and in Orlando Bloom's case destroyed their career. The Kingdom is one of the more ponderous movies of all time. Orlando Bloom fresh off of LOTR heat, which was a pile of shit movies but people liked them so whatever i file it under Forrest Gump as a movie i didn't like but people did so i don't know what to say about them other than "you're wrong you asshole it sucked". To me when people tell me that Forest Gump was a great movie I think that if they were in the live freestyle between Biggy and Tupac they'd cheer the loudest for the 10 year old kid Syheim(like every single fucking person in the crowd and since I heard that i realized I'll never respect the opinion of the masses because they're fucking fools).

Anyways we were talking about the death of Orlando Bloom, Bloom was the Luke Perry of the LOTR movies, the heart throb hero that stole the screen from the main character whilst winning over the tweens. When you get tweens behind you there's no excuse for a failure, and The Kingdom raced past failure on a jet ski that ran on bad ideas. A Braveheart/Gladiator like war movie that was light on the combat more on the sitting around between battles and also had the heavy handed message that Christianity stomps infidels, which to me was off putting. I mean I hate fundamental Islamics more than some people are comfortable saying but the whole movie was glorifying the crusades which is fucking insane to even watch, it'd be like the kid from Twilight going on to be the sympathetic lead in a movie about a Spanish inquisition-er who is in love with a girl and thinks about her longingly while he burns a child's face because they didn't pray correctly. I hate when people use the term of "too long" to dismiss a movie because they could just watch a sitcom if they wanted in and out. But this movie really dragged on with a lot of inconsequential scenes that had nothing to do with anything.

By the way we were talking about Michael Mann in his role as director/producer of Public Enemies, now i realize I got off on a tirade about how Mann crushed an actors career and it didn't really have anything to do with the point of this entry and it doesn't have ANYTHING to do with Public Enemies...so lets do it again.

Mann also directed Miami Vice which completely killed Colin Farrel's career. Colin was everywhere and his snarky rebel attitude was the new good looking Hollywood rebel. Then out came Miami Vice, a movie about drugs in Miami, with out knowing it made the unfun version of Bad Boys. Straight down to the "lets have the villain do something brutal in the first 10 minutes so we all know that he is a dick and lets have the cops do something selfless with a hint of cool so they are spoon fed into everyone's mouth as likable" Vice was such a fucking meh movie IMDB probably doesn't have a 1-10 rating for it because no one could sit through it. Foxx and Farrell were so big at the time it was like Michael Jordan and Mike Tyson creating a sport together, so many people loved them whatever came out would've been a hit. Mann somehow figured out how to make a cop buddy movie into such a boring 2 hour + shitfest that I honestly have no idea how it ended or what the plot really was other than coke in Miami, if Miami Vice was a band they would be Converge. Yes I know I saw and heard something, but to be honest i couldn't tell you what it was and what it meant to anyone other than it sucked. Miami Vice was so bad I'm convinced Colin Farrell is still at the premier somewhere staring at the screen wondering what the fuck just happened. Daredevil did more for Farrell's career. Farrell's sex tape left people feeling better and more fulfilled than Miami Vice did, and it probably made more money and was less embarrassing for Farrell's parents to see.

On top of Miami Vice Mann somehow was allowed to ruin a movie about the life of Muhammad Ali. M.A. could have been Black Elvis if Kool Keith didn't already take that title. I don't need to explain what M.A. meant to America and its culture but i can say that the movie Ali almost erased it. Ali could have ended Will Smith's career. Luckily however it didn't, which is good because despite Will being a Scientologist Will is incredibly likable human and i believe a talented actor. It was nice to see him escape a death sentence like Ali and I'm glad his career was not ruined, that was saved for Hancock, yet another Michael Mann movie. Ali was a colossal let down for a movie that was supposed to be "the biopic to end all biopics" in a movie where Will Smith was actually strong in too. It was just a boring dry movie, another "Mannsterpiece". Mann could be a very good cinematographer but he is just that. He can make movies look good but not be interesting, he's every girl i want to fuck. A total unending bore with no ability to keep your interest but yet has tits so I'll still sit through their horse shit

Anyways back to Public Enemies and lets look deeper into the cast, I guess. Who gives a shit at this point but fuck it I wanna type things. Public Enemies was such a let down even the rap group Public Enemy deserved a backlash for it.

I'd like to get back to the elements of this movie namely the cast. So in the words of a pedo-uncle "lets do some role play".

So you are a non-headlining second or third tier actor in Hollywood and you are pitched "Dillinger's death played by Depp with Bale and the director of Heat" now on paper that has a chance to win Oscars and become a part of America's culture for years, the problem is these actors(a lot who pick their roles carefully) didn't really think about what that meant. It attracted a pile of good actors to play supporting roles in parts they were too good for. Giovanni Ribisi who once had a great career so good that I'm shocked Michael Mann didn't try to kill it earlier. Billy Crudup who's last name sounds like a frog said it and who's dick is gigantic and blue and every girl I'll ever date would throw me into a volcano to make out with him. Even Stephen Dorff came out of his cave for this movie. Fucking Stephen Dorff!!! He's still alive!!! Blade didn't kill him! I thought this guy was going to be the next Christian Slater.... well it turns out he kinda was. Here for a second everything is going gooWHERE THE FUCK DID HE GO? I checked Dorff's filmography to see if I could place when he went away and it was either "Cecil B Demented" or "feardotcom" i can't believe one man could have those two movies in common. its like being involved in both 9/11 and........feardotcom. Feardotcom, the movie about a website that when you go to it you get killed. A website, that kills you. A....fucking.....website.......Tom Hanks could have made feardotcom after Gump Saving Private Ryan Philadelphia Apollo 13 Toy Story and A League of Their Own and it still would've destroyed him in the eyes of viewers, more than Castaway did.

Sorry back to the cast. My boy Lucas from Empire Records had a small role as a fed, and maybe expecting more from him was fruitless and i shouldn't have thought Mann could've gotten more from him. I guess he'll never be Lucas again but its not like Jack was ever McMurphy again and YES I AM COMPARING THE TWO. Moving back to the top again the film had a nice collection of two actresses who fit in perfectly, one was at her peak of popularity in fresh off an Oscar win for best actress Marion Cotillard, or as I know her, foreign attractive Maggie Gyllenhaal, and as everyone will know her "that girl who won an Oscar made shit movies and went away" IE: Halle Berry.
had to post something here with tits.

Cotillard however did a good job of acting but at times she kind of stole the story and this will sound sexist but a top tier leading lady tends to take away from a movie's chemistry, it stops being there's Dillinger and his broad lady and it becomes, oh look its Depp and Cameron Diaz or Depp and troglodyte Angelina Jolie. A strong leading lady tends to take some of the story and focus away from the leading man and it almost forces the movie to take into account other people's point of view that the movie didn't need. This works in a lot of movies and in some cases it sabotages the movie from the inside. But luckily in Public Enemies Mann was able to over saturate the story line taking into account both of the women's perspectives on top of 2 criminals and 2 cops. Its amazing when a dull drawn out movie can still manage to be a unsettled clusterfuck like this. Then the movie about Dillinger stops and it becomes another thing you have to sit through before they mercifully roll credits.

Casting
Continued.

They also went slumming and got a popular actor amongst the kids in Channing Tatum and in an upset Channing kept up his unthinkable streak of being in movies less and less interesting than "Step up" if I was a producer in L.A. and wanted to know if a movie would be good or not I'd call up Channing Tatum and if he says "Yeah sounds great" I'd throw the script out of my fucking window and fire whoever handed it to me and 3 people with similar names just to be safe.

In an odd turn of events one of my favorite fighters of all time Don Frye is in this movie complete with his mustache and horrendous eyebrows, its fun taunting a man like Frye from behind a keyboard as he'd punch me in the chest and my heart would explode like the death star.


also if you ever wanna see the best fight of all time


At this point you can tell I'm getting lazy with the casting but as a final statement about how stacked this movie was and how good the final product COULD habe been this guy guy who has the scariest fucking imdb photo ever was in it.

To sum up all the ingredients of this shit chili. A great story of one of America's most infamous human beings who has been both vilified and glorified by historians for years but was always regarded as fascinating and to go with a great story plot climax and ending an amazing cast of popular notoriety and skilled actors who for the most part were all peaking at the point of this movies release. A strong visual director who like every other director who released great movies had some shitty ones, but still absolutely had it in him to release a great movie. and with a great story you could take a visual director to really make the movie a masterpiece. Everything was going perfect for this. You had story and cast all you needed was to mix it together correctly and you have a delicious pile of fun. Instead it was slapdashed thrown together with no empathy for the audience. This is two movies in a row where I am accusing the writers producers and directors of going out of their way to punish the audience and i stand by my silly claim.

They had an audience a great cast a great story and they fucking threw it all away.

This movie is by no means an awful piece of shit like Salt. But it really really wasn't good, and especially compared to everyone's expectations it was a piece of fucking shit. Its just like 4 out of the 7 movies Mann has directed since 1992. Its a C movie with all the ingredients to have made an A movie. Its like a super group, This movie was the 03-04 Los Angeles Lakers, a finished product that was never the equal of its collected parts. Kobe Shaq both in their primes, Karl Malone, Gary Payton still very functionable and talented, Derek Fisher, Rick Fox off the bench. Phil Jackson coaching, it should have been automatic championship, but they discovered that paper wins you nothing. Just like this movie gave everyone nothing. This movie was so dry and dull it hurt. It wasn't even like a "that looks good" conversation before the movie started. It was a fuck whatever movie we just saw lets talk about how great that movie is going to be discussion that took place afterward.

This SHOULD have been a monster hit, but it just wasn't it was a fucking flop. i don't care what it did in the box office money wise and whether it supports or disproves my argument. I don't care how many people saw this movie or rented it the movie was just a bust. I guarantee no one ever watched the director commentary of this movie and was impressed, unless Mann says things like "here is when I said fuck the viewers i want an 7th shot of a sun setting for 40 seconds".

It should have been one of those movies that people acknowledge for years. It should have been as good or better than Once Upon a Time in America. See!!! Thats how highly I thought of what this movie could have been! I look at this movies trailer and I still think it could be good. Thats when you know you have been betrayed, when even after the incident you look back at it like, nah wait this could still work. Give it a shot!! In the trailer there's this really well shot iconic glimpse of Dillinger jumping over a counter with his Thompson and his overcoat is in the air like he was a superhero. And I'll always think about seeing that in a preview thinking, wow this movie is going to be phenomenal. He might as well have jumped over the counter into a fucking shark tank.