Public Enemies: Review By Josh

Michael Mann's latest is a meticulously crafted and technically impressive film. It's a tragic love story wrapped in a period gangster epic, well-plotted and tense with a great leading performance from Depp and shot in glorious HD making the action scenes -- the Little Bohemian shootout especially -- jump right off the screen and into your face. Dante Spinotti's cinematography is immediately gripping. I only wish Mann would have opted to make a more multidimensional character study that showed who Dillinger really was. Dillinger's origin is explained in a throwaway line about a bad childhood and some good character development opportunities are squandered like when he is extradited to Indiana (his birthplace) but the film doesn't use that to explore his past.