Dullinger: Public Enemy #1

It's been a long time since I last wrote a review here; after seeing (and not writing a review of) the spectacularly and delightfully bad 10,000 BC, I began asking myself, "do I still have it in me? I mean, if I can't work up the energy to extol a movie about prehistoric mammoth hunters and their wooly prey being taken into slavery to build the pyramids (!), why bother?"

After that came a Nick Cage two-step, first last summer's mistitled Bangkok Dangerous, which would have more truthfully been titled "Bangkok Tedious", and this spring's Knowing, the latter of which I truly wanted to dislike and make fun of, and yet I couldn't. As much as I like to make fun of Nicholas Cage, particularly that facial expression that indicates a constant state of annoyed perplexity, as if he is angered but cannot figure out why, I truly enjoyed "Knowing." The combination of a surprise, not-by-the-Hollywood-playbook ending and truly frightening angels ("oh, that's why angels in the Bible always say 'fear not!'") made this Catholic viewer sit up in admiration.

****

Summer is at last upon us, and that means blockbuster action movies with big stars. And so, in the summer spirit, the Society convened last night and made its way over to Manhattan's East Side to see Public Enemies; when we discussed going on the phone, Eric said, "I don't know, I've read some good reviews of it. Should we go?"

"We're allowed to fuck up once in a while and see something good. Remember 'Knowing'?" I replied.

"True. Let's do it."

Suffice it to say, as we left the theater after the slow-paced, two-hour plus film, I said, "Mission accomplished."

I usually enjoy period-pieces, particularly ones depicting the 1930's, but the superabundance of fedoras, V-8 Fords, and Thompson submachine guns could not keep me interested in this plodding and historically inaccurate tale. At over two hours, the story is paced as a drama punctuated with action scenes, but lacks the character development to withstand the tempo.

More problematic for me were the digital cinematography and the historical inaccuracies of the script. As Ace of Spades notes in his review, the color in natural light was washed-out, and, to my tastes, gave the impression of watching a TV show on the big screen. This inability for high-definition digital photography to capture natural light results in a flat and somewhat dark and fuzzy picture. Coupled with Michael Mann's use of tight close-ups and hand-held NauseaCam!, I got the sense that this film would look better when watched on a TV at home, rather than in the theater. On that basis alone, I agree with Ace's recommendation to wait until in comes out on DVD to watch it.

Lastly, the revisionism of the story was my greatest frustration; one of the main reasons I was interested in seeing "Public Enemies" in the first place was to see if and how the Twin Cities of Minneapolis (my hometown) and St. Paul would be treated. The gangland era in St. Paul (the 1920's through the mid-1930's) is perhaps one of the most fascinating parts of Minnesota history; a far cry from the "Minnesota nice" stereotype, St. Paul in the early 1930's was a sanctuary city for gangsters and bank robbers from all over the country. The most notorious of these criminals was John Dillinger.

And yet in "Public Enemies", St. Paul is not even mentioned, much less depicted. Events that actually took place in St. Paul, such as Dillinger living with Billie Frechette and narrowly escaping the FBI in an apartment building shootout, were depicted as taking place in Chicago. The disastrous shootout at Little Bohemia, Wisconsin incorrectly shows Dillinger's gang members Homer Van Meter, John Hamilton, and Lester "Babyface Nelson" Gillis being killed by Melvin Purvis and his agents.

In reality, the Little Bohemia shootout was a debacle for the FBI, one which resulted in the death of an innocent motorist, shot by FBI agents, one police officer, and FBI agent W. Carter Baum; subsequent to the shootout Special Agent Purvis tendered his resignation, which was not accepted. The following day, John Hamilton was mortally wounded by police during a car chase at Hastings, Minnesota as the Dillinger gang made its way back to St. Paul. Van Meter was gunned down in a blind alley not far from the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul by St. Paul police one month after Dillinger was shot outside Chicago's Biograph Theater, while Gillis was killed in Illinois four months after Dillinger's death.

The true Dillinger story is interesting enough, without having to tell a fictional account. The St. Paul journalist and historian Paul Maccabee has extensively researched the gangland history of St. Paul, the culmination of which he wrote in a marvelous book entitled John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crooks' Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul, 1920-1936.

I recommend that you spend the $25 it would cost you and a friend to see "Public Enemies" on the Maccabee book, and wait for the movie to come out on DVD. You'll enjoy it much more.