Public Enemies: Johnny Depp Is Fucking Gorgeous
PUBLIC ENEMIES [Insert girlish squeal.]
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Finally, after an incredibly disappointing string of crappy, halfhearted summer movie releases, we get to the good stuff. Public Enemies is entertainment for adults, a cat-and-mouse period thriller riddled with glamour, excitement, and real cinematic craftsmanship. Michael Mann, solidly rebounding from 2006's disastrous Miami Vice remake, seems to be having the time of his life mythologizing John Dillinger. He gets the most out of his cast, too: Billy Crudup, especially, nails J. Edgar Hoover as a creepy bastard who can't handle it when reality doesn't match his desires. Unfortunately, Christian Bale's turn as driven FBI agent Melvin Purvis doesn't quite match up to the rest of the top-notch cast. Bale plays him a bit too cardboard; he doesn't allow the audience to get into Purvis's head.
But the good far outstrips the bad here. The camera revels in every luscious period detail, and the tense, brutal action sequences are classic Mann. This isn't the best movie he's ever directed (longish stretches of the film lack structure and the score veers into generic territory fairly often), but it's probably the most entertaining. Even a couple of heavy-handed moments that accentuate the government's willingness to torture in a "war on crime"—government-sanctioned torture on film is so 2008—can't make Enemies any less thrilling.
Stranger Personals
In many ways, this is a one-man show: Johnny Depp leavens
folk-celebrity bank robber Dillinger with more than a dash of young
Elvis Presley. When he smirks, you half expect him to be assaulted by a
horde of screaming teenage girls. His scenes with Marion Cotillard make
the most of that seductiveness: They look like they're going to eat
each other. It's really adorable. Depp usually tries so hard to fugly
himself up or weigh his character down with weird tics that to see him
like this—as an attractive, charismatic, famous man—feels
like a revelation. 
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2
Depp indeed looks and acts magnificently and is far more attractive than most of the big male stars half his age. But perhaps you'd rather see Jake Gyllenhaal stammer his way through yet another role that outstrips his meager talents.
Depp's looks and acting ability represent the upper echelon in Hollywood, a town where age bias against the young, incidentally, is not a problem.
6
Captain Abu Raed
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Drag Me to Hell
Food, Inc.
Moon
O'Horten
The Sleep Dealer
Away We Go
A Woman Under the Influence.
Yes, it had great costumes and Johhny Depp still looks good. But it is nothing compared to the 1973 version, Dillinger. But then again I wouldn't expect that the Stranger would give a good review to a film with a bunch of ugly guys in it.
# 5 is right, this film had poor character development and there was very little dialogue.
What happened to Johnny Depp? In the 90s he was so selective with his roles. He does looks good in 30s outfits but that isn't enough for me ... but then again, I'm not gay.
I'm sorry, Depp was an icon once but now he makes over produced piles of predictable crap.
For those who still love Depp's looks, save your money and just google an image of him then watch Dillinger instead.
Yes, it had great costumes and Johhny Depp still looks good. But it is nothing compared to the 1973 version, Dillinger. But then again I wouldn't expect that the Stranger would give a good review to a film with a bunch of ugly guys in it.
# 5 is right, this film had poor character development and there was very little dialogue.
What happened to Johnny Depp? In the 90s he was so selective with his roles. He does looks good in 30s outfits but that isn't enough for me ... but then again, I'm not gay.
I'm sorry, Depp was an icon once but now he makes over produced piles of predictable crap.
For those who still love Depp's looks, save your money and just google an image of him then watch Dillinger instead.
10
But the script was so mind-numbingly dreadful that I found myself looking forward to the shoot-em-up scenes, not so much because I'm a big-bang fan, but because maybe THEN there wouldn't be much dialogue. Every time Dillinger was allowed to expound on life made me literally cringe.(Roughly: "It ain't where you're from--it's where you're going." "We're having to much fun today to think about tomorrow." "What do you want?" "Everything, right now.")
How can we expect to connect with a guy who only speaks in quoteables? Bleagh.
11
But the script was so mind-numbingly dreadful that I found myself looking forward to the shoot-em-up scenes, not so much because I'm a big-bang fan, but because maybe THEN there wouldn't be much dialogue. Every time Dillinger was allowed to expound on life made me literally cringe.(Roughly: "It ain't where you're from--it's where you're going." "We're having to much fun today to think about tomorrow." "What do you want?" "Everything, right now.")
How can we expect to connect with a guy who only speaks in quoteables? Bleagh.
Alice in Wonderland will probably suck too.
Johnny Depp was one of my heros in adolescence. I love him in everything he did ranging from Ed Wood, Gilbert Grape to Benny & Joon. You name it I liked it.
But I find Tim Burton's substance lacking teenage driven revenge films exploitative of Johnny Depp's charming eccentricities.
& the Burton, Depp, Bonham Carter lineup is boring.
I still have faith in all of them individually but they need to break up.
And Miami Vice was fucking epic.
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