I hated Dillinger and wanted him to die. What did I miss?
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Jelvit — 14 years ago(November 12, 2011 08:37 AM)
Yeah, Manns too keen on trying to humanize the scumbag and portray him as some kinda romantic anti-hero - starting with casting Depp with his apparently everfresh pretty-boy charms.
There are enough gangster movies that romanticize criminals. This isn't one of them in my opinion.
If they had wanted Dillinger to be charming he would have been charming and not some kind of cold blooded money hungry murderous most of the time kind of ruthless and bland criminal. I mean he's played by Depp who has tons of charms if he wants to! But the way Dillinger was portrayed had next to no charms. So apparently they didn't want him to be charming - at least I think so. Everytime I started to sympathize with the criminals they robbed a bank / took hostages / shot at and killed people.
I didn't see much humanizing of either the cops side or the gangsters in that movie - not in the 90 minutes of it that I watched. They were both ruthless and kind of insane in their obsession (crime / catching criminals).
I don't really get what this movie wants to tell me either. I think it's just kind of depressing and bland. But crime thrillers are not really my genre. -
Petronius Arbiter II — 14 years ago(December 28, 2011 01:54 PM)
Not correct. In real life, one of two things happened:
(a) Some people, including some in Dillinger's family, think Dillinger wasn't there at all, at the East Chicago bank job. According to them, some other gang member Harry Copeland? actually shot officer (William) Patrick O'Malley. Or else it was John Hamilton, who witnesses definitely said was present, but whom they may have gotten mixed up with Dillinger or whomever. (I have my own opinions on the matter, and I'm keeping them to myself.)
(b) Let's say it was Dillinger. If so or if not so, for that matter whoever it was, there was nothing accidental about it. Dillinger ordinarily shot to frighten, not to kill or even maim, and was exceptionally good at firing in someone's general direction without actually hitting them.
But O'Malley didn't know the gang members were wearing bulletproof vests. He fired directly at Dillinger or whomever, hitting the chest but the vest deflected the bullet as it was designed to do. So Dillinger, or whomever, considered it a clear case of self-defense. If O'Malley got another shot in, the bulletproof vest might not work so well a second time.
"I don't deduce, I observe." -
bostonmovienut — 13 years ago(May 12, 2012 09:19 PM)
Melvin Purvis committed suicide because
A. He had cancer and
B. Because J. Edgar Hoover ruined his career
As for hating Dillinger, yes quite frankly I do think you're being hypersensitive, did you come in expecting Dillinger to be Mother Teresa?, Man was a criminal most of his life and would die a criminal. In reality I'm sure Dillinger was much nastier than they portrayed him to be in the movie. And you're actually shocked he robbed banks to get nice clothes and fast cars? Really? He wasn't Robin Hood, no real-life criminal is. While yes there is the cliche'd criminal who robs to feed his family there, in real life there 1 out of 100 at least. All criminals who rob/sell drugs/guns etc. do it to live the good life.
That being said I didn't enjoy the movie either, it was incredibly inaccurate factually and he didn't develop the character of Melvin Purvis who in reality wasn't just the "flat determined cop character". Mann seemed to busy with the camera work to care about anything else. -
the_departed94 — 13 years ago(November 04, 2012 05:54 AM)
- I'm sure I read somewhere than Purvis didn't commit suicide, he was cleaning his gun when it accidently discharged.
- I remember when i first watched the movie and i thought the ending was very powerful. Mainly because of billy, she's the one you feel sorry for, not Dillinger. Plus the score is very moving.
I'm with Mann, I don't really care about historical accuracy or making the movie longer to accommodate screen time for the supporting actors, the movies about Dillinger and it works fine. He was making a sleek crime thriller, not a 3 hour long documentary 100% accurate biopic.
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InternationaleClique — 12 years ago(April 08, 2013 07:09 AM)
- I'm sure I read somewhere than Purvis didn't commit suicide, he was cleaning his gun when it accidently discharged.
Riight. Like the first thing a seasoned gun handler does not do is to remove any bullets from the chamber when cleaning it.
Back then they often made up stories like that when people offed themselves to alleviate the shame.
- I'm sure I read somewhere than Purvis didn't commit suicide, he was cleaning his gun when it accidently discharged.
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Blarhhh — 12 years ago(June 16, 2013 04:20 AM)
Riight. Because no seasoned gun handler has ever shot themself accidentally.
But anyway, the FBI did believe that it was suicide. It was later that people came to believe that he may have accidentally died while trying to remove a jammed tracer.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dillinger/peopleevents/p_purvis.html
"No Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?" -
InternationaleClique — 12 years ago(June 29, 2013 07:03 AM)
Riight. Because no seasoned gun handler has ever shot themself accidentally.
While cleaning their gun? Then they wouldn't be seasoned. It's impossible to have an accident if you know what you are doing. -
Sacotra — 13 years ago(November 05, 2012 12:59 PM)
The public decides to celebrity-worship this man merely because he's charming and handsome? Is that all? I think there was a quote about him not stealing the public's money. Were people so dense to think that, because Dillinger robbed from the bank vault, it wasn't the public's money? Or was society so depraved during the Depression that, as long as it's not coming out of my wallet, it's glamorous and permissible? "I wish I could be like Dillinger and rob banks instead of working in a factory. What a dream!"
I found the following on a blog (link below), which I think explains what you're confused about here:
So I was a bit disappointed in the Public Enemies movie. All the actors are well cast, but there's something a little "off" about the finished product. Part of it, to me anyway, is that I don't think Michael Mann did a very good job at capturing the zeitgeist of the times. Yeah, he lets you know that America was in the midst of the Great Depression, but he didn't really show just how bad times were then. People were hungry and desperate, and really, really angry with banks, police officers and federal agents. The banks were foreclosing, and the cops and the feds were kicking people out of their homes. Not to mention the head-busting that was going on when workers tried to unionize. Bank robbers like John Dillinger and Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd became folk heroes because there was something of a Robin Hood quality to them, a way to vicariously give some "payback" to the banks and authority figures who were oppressing the everyman of this country.
Source:
http://dawnieland.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/my-cousin-was-gangsters-moll. html -
bradtroy136 — 12 years ago(June 23, 2013 12:36 PM)
Your an idiot. You wouldn't know how to "feel" unless the p.c. police permitted you a license for it.
Perhaps the public celebrated these "criminals" because at least they were robbing from the real monsters who were (and still are) printing "money" out of thin air, enslaving us into debt.
Because unlike the blind sheep of today, perhaps, they frowned more at the condescending idea of a centralized government equipped with it's now provenly inefficient fbi "tzar" to "protect" the public. -
pfarnell — 9 years ago(July 17, 2016 06:32 PM)
yes, these guys were those days 'Occupy" movement.
Well, actually, they were probably nothing like that, not political as such at all, perhaps began with some sense of personal social grievance and just liked stealing large sums of money and getting the hot bitches bad guys always seem to get.
Also, far less annoying and more likeable than such-as Occupy and BLM Gladwrap-ninjas.
Too bad today's political protestors can't share the Yeggs' typical fate, franklynow THAT would be a great movie ending.