'Public Enemies'

Another great period piece

Last week, I talked about "Black Mass," an organized crime movie based on true events with a star-studded cast. Unfortunately, there's only one period piece where Johnny Depp plays the head of a crime syndicate based on true events with another brilliant actor in the supporting role.

At least that's what I thought until I watched "Public Enemies," where Johnny Depp plays real-life mobster and bank robber John Dillinger, who became the primary focus of the up-and-coming FBI program trying to crack down on crime during the Great Depression.

It's an excellent period piece that captures the nuance of the early 1930s, and the deterioration of the American Frontier as civilization as well as law and order were finally beginning to establish a grip on the gunslinging outlaw idolization that reigned in the decades previous.

The film opens with Dillinger being led into a prison, seemingly captured by a lonely officer. Oh man, short movie, I guess they got him for good. Wrong. The man that brings him in is a member of his organization posing as an officer so they can smuggle weapons into the prison and break out a few of their associates.

This is the first of a few nitpicky historical inaccuracies that biographical movies just have to wear on the chin to help establish characters and storylines a bit better, but in real life, Dillinger wasn't actually there. He was responsible for getting weapons inside to help his buddies get armed, but he was actually imprisoned in another state at the time of the prison break.

However, that depiction wouldn't have been as cool as what the movie sets up in just the opening scene. The film then jumps to the other storyline following Melvin Purvis, an agent of the Department of Investigation (which would later become the FBI). Purvis hunts down another notorious bank robber, Pretty Boy Floyd, and kills him while he tries to escape through an apple orchard.

This was another inaccuracy they deemed justifiable as it only gets a minute or two of screen time, but in reality, this took place way after the events at the end of the movie and not in the beginning.

Purvis gets a promotion for his successes by J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the DOI, and is told Dillinger is his main assignment. They fail on the first ambush attempt and lose a young agent in the process but happen to stumble upon Dillinger and members of his gang while they reside at a hotel in Arizona, arresting them and sending them to prison.

Dillinger doesn't stay very long, as he methodically cons his way out, room by room in a beautifully shot scene where nearly half of it is shot right over Dillinger's shoulder, giving a near first-hand view of the escape.

When he returns to his crime spree, things are falling apart. His money laundering operation won't take any more of his money, most of his associates are dead, the DOI is breathing down his neck and is using his girlfriend as bait. Not to mention, he is declared public enemy No. 1, and his face is plastered everywhere you could imagine.

He meets his fate while leaving a movie theater with one of his friends who ratted on his whereabouts to the DOI and is shot in the back several times in the middle of the sidewalk.

I really enjoyed watching this. It's on Netflix for the time being, so I recommend you add it to your list immediately.