Nobody's Hero

Public Enemies- Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard


Director-Michael Mann








SEE.





I'm not going to tell you not to see this movie. You've probably already seen it. It's not a bad flick. It's just not the movie it was meant to be. Like Mann's Ali, this movie lacks the special quality that will leave people talking about it for years to come. Once again, a famous director lets a surefire success run adrift. And, yet again, I'm left to ponder what is it exactly that a director does. Is he/she a visual stylist? A lucky bastard surrounded by more talented people who are simply too shy to take credit? A raving lunatic with a penchant for pissing off actors and abusing crew? No. I don't think so. The director is, allegedly, the person responsible for taking a story on paper and telling it on film or video or whatever the hell it is people use now. (I can't keep up.)




The point is-I don't care how pretty your shots are, you must be able to tell a coherent story. I don't care if you tell it out of sequence but you'd better make damn sure I can follow. I don't care if you leave out two-thirds of a true character's life story, but you'd better make damn sure that I care about that character some kind of way. Somebody please explain to me how this is the same guy who brought me The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider and even Collateral. Look, I like watching Johnny Depp as much as the next guy, girl or person with a pulse, but when you're playing somebody who actually lived the life your portraying, you really gotta have a backstory. Otherwise, this is just another gangster flick with a tragic, inevitable conclusion.


Despite painstaking attention to detail, the subject of how John Dillinger came to be John Dillinger is left untold. Someone decided it didn't matter. Let's tell 'em a love story and give 'em some shootouts. That'll sell tickets. I don't disagree. It was the beginning of the FBI. It was the beginning of the war on crime. It was an era unlike any we've ever known. Got it. But, if at the end of the movie, all I'm thinking is, "Yep. Another dead criminal," instead of "Damn. I was so rooting for this guy even though I know he bites it in the end,"well, there's a failure to communicate. And who's the communicator? Yep. Mr. Mann. Paging the director please?! Id anybody home. If Bonnie and Clyde (a couple of two-bit hoodlums in reality) can be made into freakin' folk heroes, then, surely, we can do the same with John Dillinger (who was at least applauded by some of his more law abiding contemporaries.) Let's make it count for something.




John Dillinger came up the hard way (how does this make him different from any other hardcase?); he "fell" into a life of crime (because if nothing else,he was a good criminal), and his success (as such) shaped the FBI and, ultimately it's tactics, because they just couldn't catch the guy. As an audience member, I must wonder, in this era of people losing their jobs left and right, could any one of us could become a John Dillinger. To a few people of that day and age, John Dillinger was not the public enemy, he was just John Q. Public. Forget the black and white view of a criminal. Dillinger represented something that could happen to anyone of us, and has happened to many folks who can't now and couldn't back then just take what they needed. He embodied the human determination to do whatever it takes to survive. Moreover, he represented all those Depression-era folks and their deep mistrust of a system that let a country fall so far from grace. Ringing a bell, anybody? Such great parallels to explore. Too bad, Mr. Mann didn't find that film on paper.



EAT.



Cast Iron cooking. I don't know. Seeing those robbers gathered around a stove on some desolate mid-Western farm just made me yearn for some pork cracklings. (I don't even know what those are.) Stop asking why and just go with it! I'm feeling old-fashioned. Hide out at http://www.whatscookingamerica.net/castironrecipes.





SHOP.



Apparently bank robbers in the 1930s had the time and inclination to wear tailored suits and even vests. Ah, back when criminals were gentlemen. If you feel the need for dapper derring-do (No idea. Just felt right.), visit www.ballyhoovintage.com/mens301.