Johnny Depp has a more bitter, angular face than the famous bank robber, but the attitude in the eyes is about right. Christian Bale looks exactly like a guy who would spend a lot of time at the office shining his shoes and employ a manservant named President. And Billy Crudup can take on the toad-like appearance of J. Edgar Hoover (of course, he can also convey a character who is naked, blue, and significantly animated. The man has skills.) I have no particular faith in Marion Cotillard's accent, but whatever. The point of Billie Frechette in this story was never particularly Billie Frechette. It seems to me like playing Baby Face Nelson, a straight-up psychotic, would be more interesting for Channing Tatum than playing Pretty Boy Floyd, but then I am not his agent (though I am, of course, open to a chance of careers. Miss Rosenberg's Finishing School for Misguided Starlets perhaps?), and it's not like they're sticking to history when it comes to Pretty Boy Floyd anyway. The suits are snappy, the guns cumbersome, the tones sepia.
There is a clear market for a movie about an anti-hero who takes on the banks, and the trailer makes sure to feature a moment in the Dillinger legend when he refused to take a bank customer's money (never mind the fact that the bank's money and the customer's money are, um, the same in days before the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). Public Enemies seems like a much less naked grab for the dollars of angry moviegoers than Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell, which is based on the premise that it is a poor idea to deny a gypsy an extension on her home loan.
And yet, I'm unconvinced. One of the best parts of Bryan Burrough's book is the exploration of the relationship between Purvis and Hoover, how Purvis's incompetence and Hoover's intransigence soured that relationship, and how Hoover's decision to exile Purvis from the Bureau essentially ruined Purvis's life. And I think there's next to no chance the movie will explore that relationship. It's too bad. Hoover is an astonishingly good character--Don Delillo's portrait of him in Underworld has the makings of a movie in and of itself--and yet there's never been a great biopic about him, or even any significant attempt to make one. John Dillinger was an iconic character, but not a complex one. Hoover was both.