Public Enemies

As many of you may know, I absolutely love any movie that Mr. Johnny Depp does. Well, the same goes for this movie. Even though he plays a hardened criminal who robs banks, I could not help but feel empathy for his character (it must be that I just love him so much!). But otherwise, as I was watching the movie, despite the bad sound system and people coughing during the quiet parts, I enjoyed it very much. The make-up people did a wonderful job covering Mr. Depp's many tattoos, and I am sure they even had to change around some details like where he got shot in order to keep his character up. There was one mistakes on make-up's part, however, and that was the fake mustache they used for Depp, did not cover his own mustache (you could see hte stubble growing, and it was very distracting). Obviously the costuming was done superbly (the movie is based in the 1930's) snd matches the time period perfectly. They even found old pocket watches that worked. One thing noticed however, was the irony of a certain pair of glasses Depp's character, John Dillinger, wore, which were rose colored. During this scene, Dillinger refuses to accept that he might die at the hands of police men, who might catch him after his next crime spree. Of course, in the next scene, his glasses were different.
The shots of the movie however were wonderful. IN the very beginning there is a moving shot of a car, which at first seems a little unusual (as I have never seen this type of shot before) but once I started to see some of the other shots, I was very pleased. There are many many MANY close-up shots (so if you do not like Depp or Christian Bale, don't watch this movie) and also many different angles of each scene. During one scene, I stopped counting after 5 different angles. And of course, like almost every movie now, there is (what I consider) a 'sex scene', but a nice refresher was that Depp did not take his shirt off and Marion Cotillard (who portrays Billie Frechette) went down to a nightie, but nothing anymore revealing. What I found exciting but also disappointing was that Cotillard's character, Billie, turns in Dillinger's jacket, but not too much comes of it, nor does Dillinger seem to mind much that he lost his wonderful jacket. However, I may have also been confused, since it is mentioned that 'the girl at coatcheck' identified him, and Billie's job, before becoming Dillinger's girl, was a coatcheck girl.
Some of the scenes were a little shaky (literally), where the camera man (or woman) must have been holding the camera by hand, and well, it should not have happened. The acting in this film, as far as I know (or can tell) was very close to what really happened. The movie was based on John Dillinger, Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd, and George "Baby Face" Nelson's crime sprees in the 1930's after the great depression. One of my favourite movies is 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?', which also features George "Baby Face" Nelson, and the comparison of him in these two movies is very close. I am glad to see that the creators of Public Enemies (as well as the author of the book this movie is based on) did their research well. It is always wonderful to see a movie based on actual events that is portrayed so well. Overall though, it was an absolutely fabulous movie. But as with all movies, there is always room for improvement.
So, until next time--