Public Enemies

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Public Enemies

Posted: 7/4/09 at 9:06am

Saw it yesterday and was decidedly underwhelmed. It just seemed to wander all over the place, and didn't really make me interested in anybody except Marion Cotillard's character, one of the rare instances where I actually see why the hero falls madly in love with the leading lady. She's a knockout.

Anybody else seen it?

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/

Updated On: 7/4/09 at 09:06 AM

re: Public Enemies

Posted: 7/4/09 at 10:31pm

I saw it today and agree that it was underwhelming. Even with the less-than-stellar reviews I had hopes for it. It was just so...boring. There's no other way to put it. It had a great cast, an interesting story to tell, but somehow they still managed to f*** it up.

There were too many plot holes. At the end of the film my friends and I had at least 15 unanswered questions and things that didn't quite add up. Also, the things they chose to include and cut out I didn't understand. So many scenes added nothing to the plot, were too long, or took me out of the storyline and made it difficult for me to get back into the narrative. And some scenes were a combination of the three aforementioned issues. Oof. Sorry, JD. Maybe next time...

re: Public Enemies

Posted: 7/4/09 at 10:44pm

Ghastly dull and substance-free. Depp had nothing to play. Attitude, but no character. Shockingly, he was lost in huge chunks of it. A film about him ... somehow wasn't, ultimately. I couldn't find a point of view in the writing or direction. Style, style, style, tons, and lots of acting ... lots ... but surrouding what? About ...hwat? Who was our moral center, what were we to take away? Robbing banks is kinda cool ... for a while? The FBI is kinda dorky, but... But what? The depression was kinda like the current recession, 'cause, like, everybody was desperate and celebrities need to take their 15 minutes? I expected something sharper and more specific from the director of THE INSIDER. I'm rewatching BONNIE AND CLYDE, a move about people, and a mythology. This was about an idea for a character, an idea for a movie.

"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling

re: Public Enemies

Posted: 7/4/09 at 11:51pm

i'm not sure how, but a movie with continuous gunshots put me to sleep.

BOORING

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re: Public Enemies

Posted: 7/11/09 at 11:56am

I saw it on Thursday, and agree that it has very little going for it. I thought Johnny Depp phoned it in - but he had so little to do that it was probably justifiable. I, too, loved Marion Cotillard who managed to make an immensely sympathetic character out of bits and pieces. And was that Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover? Another little gem, but hardly worth sitting through this whole movie for. I don't like Chritian Bale at all, and now I have another reason why. Ol' stone face.

re: Public Enemies

Posted: 7/11/09 at 1:42pm

Maybe it was because I had spent a half hour in a batting cage just prior to seeing this last night, but I was also somewhat disappointed. I nearly drifted off a few times as well. Billy Crudup and Marion Cotillard were fantastic and the final scene was heartbreaking, but the rest of the film was just sorta 'meh'.

re: Public Enemies

Posted: 7/11/09 at 8:42pm

I thought the whole story with the phone company thing (or whatever that was) was confusing, I couldn't really understand why we were supposed to care about it and I heard that it never really happened anyway. Like someone mentioned, it did seem to wander and from the film I couldn't really get a good sense of who Dilinger was, at least in this version.

I did like the music and was prompted to finally find and rent Bonnie and Clyde, so I don't really regret seeing it.

re: Public Enemies

Posted: 7/11/09 at 9:15pm

I actually enjoyed the film, I felt the weakest point was that it could have easily been cut down to 2 hours or an hour 45. In my opinion Johnny Depp was the movie, his Dillinger was the one thing that always brought me back in when I started to waver. I thought Marion Cotiliard was great, but I wanted to see more from Christian Bale who had a very underwritten part. I was also hoping for more of an even focus on both sides ala American Gangster, but the film was shot very well and featured some really great individual scenes, like the scenes in the movie theater or depp in the dillinger unit. Overall I was expecting an oscar candidate, but what I saw was a good movie that ran too long.

Yes, but sometimes people have a third deeper layer thats the same as the first. Like pie. Dr. Horrible

Updated On: 7/12/09 at 09:15 PM

re: Public Enemies

Posted: 7/11/09 at 10:51pm

xoangel - funny that you mentioned BONNIE AND CLYDE. I kept thinking that that was a great bank robber movie, excellent character development and very fast paced.

#10

re: Public Enemies

Posted: 7/16/09 at 8:02pm

I actually just walked out of it after about an hour - I had missed about 15 minutes because I fell asleep, and just didn't care in the LEAST about any of the characters or what was happening. Huge disappointment.

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