Public Enemies (2009) Critic Reviews
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Based upon 15 Critic ReviewsHighest Rated
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Simultaneously an art film and a crime film, Mann's latest work may not give you a ton to hang on to emotionally, but the beauty and skill of the filmmaking keep you tightly in its grasp.Read the full review
A grave and beautiful work of art.Read the full review
This is a very good film, with Depp and Bale performances of brutal clarity. I'm trying to understand why it is not quite a great film. I think it may be because it deprives me of some stubborn need for closure.Read the full review
Public Enemies comes at you like Dillinger did: all of a sudden. It's movie dynamite.Read the full review
A welcome adult alternative to summer's sophomoric blockbusters. The only transforming going on here is actors skillfully taking on roles of '30s-era gangsters and lawmen.Read the full review
If Public Enemies lacks anything, it's something audiences can't legitimately expect to find: a certain EXTRA something.Read the full review
It's quite engaging. It is competently constructed and often compelling, but it will not be mentioned in the same breath as some of its classic predecessors.Read the full review
Marvelously detailed and meticulously crafted, an elegant evocation of Depression-era America and its fascination with crime. What the movie lacks is any sense of elation--it’s joyless by choice.Read the full review
As filmmaker Michael Mann takes pains to emphasize in his handsome, underheated gangster drama Public Enemies, the gent may have been murderous, but he had style.Read the full review
Mann reduces a legendary game of cat-and-mouse to the size of a standard police procedural. His refusal to mythologize Dillinger’s exploits is audacious, but too much of Public Enemies feels disappointingly smaller than life.Read the full review
