Public Enemies

Michael Mann’s Public Enemies is meek, directionless and out of touch with its period, its characters and its audience, and yet it’s hardly the worst thing to grace theaters this summer. As massive a misfire as this Johnny Depp vehicle is, it is still at its worst the work of accomplished cinephiles slacking off.

I imagine it’s hard for a director such as Mann, working in territory so similar in theme and character to his masterpiece Heat. You either risk critique by repeating yourself, adhering to the same successful formula that elevated you before, or you can distance yourself from that formula as much as possible and hope for the best. Mann chose to do the latter here, and it hasn’t worked out as you’d hope.

Heat, if you recall, was a cat and mouse approach to crime that pitted Robert DeNiro’s smooth criminal against Al Pacino’s hard-nosed, all business crime stopper. There was a criminal team of friends, and a girl for whom DeNiro would risk it all. Public Enemies offers up the same game pieces, with Depp as smooth criminal John Dillinger, Christian Bale as hardnosed G-Man Melvin Purvis, a strong group of character actors as the team, and Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard (she of “this really is a city of angels!” acceptance speech fame) as the French beauty Dillinger would risk it all for.

What’s missing, however, in a striking and unforgiveable way, is the character insight and depth that made Heat so commandingly engaging. Back then, we spent hours with both DeNiro and Pacino, digging into their souls, discovering what made them tick, which, as it turned out, was essentially the same thing. Back then, Mann didn’t need to pick a side, a perspective – he found a loophole in the bond these two opposites shared at the center of it all.

You’ll find no such insight here, no choices, no discoveries. Instead, Mann does the opposite, distancing us from both men, never allowing or forcing us to choose a side or giving us anything to lay claim to. Public Enemies is a 140 minute history book, complete with vague interpretations and one-dimensional pictures.

And yet, remarkably, it spends little to no time on the actual history of the period in which this story takes place. Dillinger and his men ran wild during The Great Depression, a time that would seem to run extraordinarily parallel to our own, and yet apart from the rare one-off scene of poverty and despair, we get only fancy cars, fur coats and spiffy hair. To contrast this lifestyle with its immediate surroundings would have been interesting, and timely. But Mann looks to make no such point here.

Instead he focuses on the gunfights, creative camera work and closeups (of which there are many) and inspired Dillinger moments of ballsy genius (of which there are a few). For the most part it isn’t bad – the actors float through, but look good doing it. The writing is lazy, but it can also be fun. And the period work – what we see of it – looks great.

Unfortunately it all leads up to an ending that, while historically accurate, leaves us cold and unfulfilled. And that about sums up the film as a whole – it knows the facts and sticks to them well, but loses track of the story in the process, and thus ends up being very average and middle of the road. Dillinger would not be proud.

Updated Summer Blockbuster Smackdown Standings:
1. Star Trek
2. The Hangover
3. Up
4. Drag Me To Hell
5. Public Enemies
6. The Taking of Pelham 123
7. Terminator Salvation
8. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
9. Angels & Demons
10. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Interest: Zero

Year One
There are movies that are so bad they’re laughable (like Transformers 2), and then there are movies that are so bad they’re almost painful to sit through. Harold Ramis’ Year One is the latter, which is sadly ironic considering that had it been the former, it would at least have gotten its job done.

Written by Ramis and the scribe team of Gene Stupnitsky/Lee Eisenberg (from TV’s The Office), Year One is a messy example of what happens when a bunch of really talented, really funny people come together to show each other how funny they are, forgetting that the people they’re really meant to entertain aren’t interested in self-congratulatory ego-shining and lazy comedy. Picture a bunch of clowns running around in a circus ring for 97 minutes with no direction or purpose, armed only with hand buzzers and fart jokes – that’s pretty much this movie.

Which isn’t to say there isn’t the occasional laugh to be found; how could there not be. But cheap laughs are especially cheap when they’re served up as fine dining. Year One plays like a gag reel, with one tired joke leading into the next, never building toward or really being a part of anything bigger, or better. In the process, it takes bit comics and beats their routines into the ground, leaving a trail of worn-out “ha ha-s” in its wake.

Take Michael Cera for example: here the straight man to Jack Black’s animated blowhard. His unique, mousy delivery is comic genius, but it plays best off its minimalism – never has it been better than in small doses on TV’s Arrested Development, or as a mirror of teen uncertainty in Superbad or Juno. Year One uses it to prop up a whole damn movie, whittling Cera down to nothing, and finally hanging him upside down and forcing him to pee himself (no joke).

Black, on the other hand, is already an embarrassment. Like Cera, he’s best as comic relief. Unhinged as the leading half of this history-exploring duo, he’s such a bludgeoning force of stupidity that it’s only a relief when he’s not onscreen.

And so it goes, with one comic showing up to do nothing but deliver stupid lines in their own special comic way. Oliver Platt, Paul Rudd, Hank Azaria, David Cross, Christopher Mintz-Plasse – one by one they fall victim to the pointlessness.

But what’s most worrisome here is what’s off screen – rumors of Ghostbuster III, to be written by the same team. Ironically, when watching this disaster I found myself wondering how much better this movie would have been had 80s era Bill Murray been in the Black role. Now I find myself frightened by the prospect of these guys teaming up with Bill Murray circa 2010. Even Murray can’t escape a movie with nothing to say (newsflash – Meatballs sucked).

But then again, surfacing from this crap you can only move up. Updated Summer Blockbuster Smackdown standings:

1. Star Trek
2. The Hangover
3. Up
4. Drag Me To Hell
5. The Taking of Pelham 123
6. Terminator Salvation
7. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
8. Angels & Demons
9. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
10. Year One

10 Albums That Caught the Bru's Attention from 2009

We're halfway through 2009 and it's time to ponder what I have been spinning on my iPod this year. Without further ado, here's the "10 Albums That Caught the Bru's Attention from 2009" in alphabetical order:

The Weirding / Astra
Leading the so-called Second Wave of Psychedelic Prog and hailing from the sunny San Diego, Astra are treading the Pink Floyd of the Meddle era. Atmospheric and instrumental jams are framed with soothing and melancholic vocal harmonies. I have a feeling that it will be very hard to top it this year.




200 Tons of Bad Luck / Crippled Black Phoenix
Another band that worships Pink Floyd, CBP is the brainchild of former Electric Wizard drummer Justin Greaves and Mogwai bassist Dominic Atchison. Along with a troupe of musicians from bands as wide-ranging as Iron Monkey and Gonga, the duo's new album is a wonderful and bizarre mixture of Pink Floyd and Faith No More. Weird and awesome.


Black Clouds and Silver Linings / Dream Theater
Subtlety has never been the forte of Dream Theater and this is another same old same old. However, when the same old is this good there's no reason to argue. The band again go to territories that other musicians fear to tread and come up with an uber-masculine slab of progressive metal. Though lacking a clear-cut classic, the band are still on the right track.



21st Century Breakdown / Green Day
The follow-up to the massively successful American Idiot was worth the wait. Green Day managed to milk four singles from that album and it looks like they can repeat the feat again. Barely. If American Idiot was Tommy, then this is Quadrophenia. The three-act structure, pretentious it may be, adds a little seasoning to the proceedings and Green Day still manage to be relevant.

Wavering Radiant / Isis
Oh, post-rock. You gotta love it. With each album Isis get a little more progressive and blur the distinction between the genre they have spearheaded and what they actually play - progressive music with a hardcore edge. The vocals are more upfront and the arrangements more taut. All in all a very good album that should propel them to mainstream success.

Journal for Plague Lovers / Manic Street Preachers
Manics are back! Using the lyrics Richey Edwards left in his journal and going back to Jenny Saville for the cover, this is a quintessential Manics album. Dare I say it's their best effort since The Holy Bible? I think I will say that - the angst is back with a hint of melancholy and longing. It's like 1994 all over again.


Octahedron / The Mars Volta
This is Mars Volta's "unplugged" album. Perhaps not an accurate description, but you get the idea. It's an album with more "Televators" and "The Widow" than "Inertiatic ESP" and "L'Via L'Viazquez". John Frusciante takes a more central role and his influence is obvious. This could very well be the most important release in the band's history and I'm curious as to what direction they will take for their next one.

Crack the Skye / Mastodon
Rasputin. Astral travel. Stephen Hawking. These are just some of the themes from the Atlanta four-piece's new album - perhaps the most important metal release of the year. They seem to get better with every release and I haven't got a clue how they will top this. I'm taking what I said back: this will be the album of the year.


Amor Vincit Omnia / Pure Reason Revolution
Taking a more electronic approach (perhaps anticipating Muse's new album), this is quite a shock knowing what these guys used to be like. I have to admit it took me a while to get over the beats and techno-like passages, but once you peel away all of that, there appear songs of quality that could rival their first release. "Deus Ex Machina" is my favourite song of the year so far.

Crooked Timber / Therapy?
The boys from Belfast are back with a bang. Their previous effort, One Cure Fits All, was pretty anonymous. With this new release they got their mojo back with a Joy Division-inspired brilliance. The title track and "Exiles" are haunting songs that should feature in their live set for years to come. They are a cut above the rest and they deserve to be so much bigger.


There will be a few more albums that I'm sure will creep up into this list by the end of the year. Clutch, Muse, and Aerosmith are just a few of the bands that are set to release new albums and from what I've heard from the new Clutch album, it sounds amazing. Oh, it's on.