This contains details of the movie and in such is considered spoilerish. I hate spoilers myself so this is your warning to stop reading.
So I went and took my 11 year old nephew with me to see Public Enemies. I know some people may thing a 11 year old is too young to see this but he dressed up as a 30’s gangster for Halloween last year and he completely wanted to see this and I saw no issue with it. I think people shelter kids too much these days, and in turn they are sometimes bombarded and not ready for the real world when they are older. There was one scene in which I told him to cover his eyes but they did not really show anything (John Dillinger and his gal were in bed but nothing was really shown, but just as a precaution I had him cover his eyes).
Now let me say Johnny Depp was perfect for this role. You need someone whom you want to be bad, and like them being bad. You want to like them even though they are stealing thousands of dollars and shooting people up left and right. Although John Dillinger does not seem like he wants to kill anyone, he just wants to rob banks, but he’s not gonna lay down and get arrested or shot, so shooting is a must.
Now let me say the first surprise in this movie is that soon to be G.I. Joe himself, Channing Tatum makes a appearance in this movie as Pretty Boy Floyd. I had not seen that he was going to be in this movie, although it was a brief seen, it was still cool to see.
Anyways, John Dillinger was a ballsy bank robber whom the public had no problem with. Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis was awesome, he is the law man put in charge in catching the original Public Enemy #1. He plays the role of the good guy in such a way that you want him to fail in catching the bad guy. Bale does a excellent job in making you hate Purvis. There are many people your gonna hate in this movie whom are not the ‘bad guys.’
Before seeing the movie I read over the FBI’s John Dillinger’s record so I knew how it would end, but that did not keep me from going to see it. You can also go to the Official John Dillinger website or the Public Enemies website to read more about the real Dillinger if you like. I think that Dillinger got screwed over and it was the system who turned him into the man he ended up becoming, well that and his father. He was beaten as a child, his mother died when he was 3, and the courts gave him something like 20 years when he was about 22, for a $50 dollar crime. That was insane and retarded, no wonder he became a criminal. He was released after 9 years.
If you like the Godfather or those types of films, or perhaps Gangster documentaries on A&E you will or should like this movie. This movie has awesome beautiful historical cars, the ‘old movies’ classy feel to it. You get lots of shooting, dust, and blood in this movie. The FBI and police are made fools of by John Dillinger, and you root for the bad guy. It was an awesome movie.
If current technology and the types of movies and tv we have now existed back then, that perhaps would be the era I’d like to live in for a while.