Public Enemies Reviews

Adheres to the historical facts of Dillinger's well-documented tapestry of brazen daylight heists, gritty shootouts and improbable jailbreaks.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/5

Burrows deeply into the depths of the Great Depression.

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Once Mann is done establishing his characters the film begins to get down to the most interesting element he brings to the project: the saddening decline of a giant.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/5

... meanders and never delivers the pay-off it promises.

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Lawmen and outlaws collide in Mann's stylish, brutal drama.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3.5

If only Mann's obsession with technical perfection extended to drafting screenplays.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 2/5

Public Enemies is a thoroughly detailed and engaging crime epic, which traces the criminal exploits and pursuit of infamous gangster, John Dillinger.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/5

Mann seems undecided about what he wants Enemies to accomplish, so he tries a little bit of everything.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 2/4

Public Enemies is an enjoyable experience but it feels like it could have been a whole lot more and another gangster classic.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/5

A lesson in how watching a man in front of the camera hit his mark can make one wish the man behind the camera had such true aim.

Full Review | Comments (2)

Feels like experimental filmmaking and never seems to transcend that to something more profound or awe-inspiring.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 5/10

Depp's performance overcomes every flaw in the film. He ends up playing Dillinger exactly as he should be--suave, mysterious, romantic, but with obvious elements of cruelty and unbridled violence.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: C+

Not to say this is not a well-crafted movie with excellent performances. It is. It is also curiously one-sided and shallow like many movies about famous outlaws tend to be.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: B

Michael Mann, director of Public Enemies has capped an extremely impressive decade of work with a movie that approaches greatness but just misses.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/4

An experimental film masked as a studio blockbuster

Full Review | Comment (1)

The popular reaction to what the defiant anti-hero came to represent in depression-era America made it almost criminal to call him one.

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 4/5

...a thinking man's gangster movie. While there's plenty of action for those looking for a shoot-'em-up, it's a decidedly cold-blooded affair

Full Review | Comment | Original Score: 3/5

You can put together all the elements that should create gold and yet without that charmed, mysterious sprinkle of cinematic pixie dust, the alchemy fails to work.

Full Review | Comment (1) | Original Score: C-

By the time director Michael Mann gets around to making clear his intention of creating a throwback to Hollywood gangster films of the '30s, "Public Enemies" has long since worn out its welcome.

Full Review | Comments (3) | Original Score: C-

Michael Mann is our poet laureate of bank robbery.

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