Short Review: When I was about 75% through the movie I had a quick and sudden primal impulse to hurl something at the screen. Depp and Bale did their part to make a bad movie better, but the storytelling lacked good character development, cinematography was weak, and both the overly dramatic soundtrack and the movie droned on-and-on . I think this is Michael Mann's lemon of a gangster movie. Save your cash.
Public enemies? Ithink that's the name. Anywho. Thanks for the review as I thought about seeing it. Has anyone else seen it????
That is really disapointing to hear... the previews look great, and I like all the actors involved... I think Hollywood is officially dead, and all movies released from now on are officially going to suck. boo
I'm still interested in seeing it, but I have to admit I'm not sure I'd like the cinematography either. He has used the same kind of look in Miami Vice (yuck) and Collateral. I think it worked beautifully for Collateral (the entire thing taking place at night in LA), but just from the previews of Public Enemy, it doesn't look like it works in largely daytime gangster movie.
Goodfellas (1990) and The Untouchables (1987) are the films I compare gangster movies to. Johnny Depp and Al Pacino were in another great mob film called Donnie Brasco, which I thought was great.
Yea donnie brasco was great. Took me a couple of tries to watch it due to it being so slow but once I did I enjoyed it.
Don't forget the mother of all gangster flicks... Godfather 1 &2... And not so much of a gangster flick but close is Scarface(my fav. movie ever).
I watched it tonight. All in all, I thought it was decent. Although I'd say wait until it hits DVD/Blu-ray. My main complaints were the length (I felt it could have been cut down quite a bit) and the cinematography. I actually found I was wrong in my original assumption of the cinematography though, I thought the camera it was shot with worked fine. I just got a little tired of the close-up, low angle, extremely unsteady cam. I don't mind a shaky camera in many instances (I thought the Bourne movies used it quite effectively), but it was just a little much in this. On the plus side, the acting was quite good (as can be expected from Depp and Bale), and the cast was stacked. I'd say my absolute favorite part of the movie though was the sound of the thompsons. I creamed my jeans a little bit every time there was a gunfight.
I sat through this last night too. I was pretty disappointed. Acting was good but he script was week and sound balance was terrible. You often couldn't hear the dialogue because the background music was so loud. When I go to a movie, I want to be entertained, not watch a documentary...