We went to see Public Enemies the other night. I'm not going to review it too much other than to say that I definitely did like it.
What I did want to talk about was this feeling that I couldn't shake throughout the movie, a feeling that I'd seen this before. It's not that I've seen the story of John Dillinger previously, but rather that it seemed like Michael Mann was remaking Heat as a period piece. (I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing, just that I observed it.) I know I'm probably over-simplifying this, but let me give you a few examples of what I'm talking about.
Spoilers for both Public Enemies and Heat from this point on.
Of course, the most obvious similarity is the theme of bank robbery where the similarities go from the very general, machine gun fights outside the banks, all the way down to the very specific, a robber tells someone during a heist, "We're not here for your money. We're here for the bank's money."
In each film, Mann assembles big name stars as the headliners and then populates the rest of the film with other famous actors or character actors so that just about every scene leaves you saying "Hey, isn't that..." or "I've seen that guy before."
Two actors who usually don't share top billing play a criminal with a distinct sense of honor and a lawman who becomes obsessed with catching him to the point of being self-destructive. While these two actors do share the film, they share only a single scene together before the final showdown.
The criminal is always noting the bad ideas that the other robbers have and describes his philosophy about what to do and what to avoid to stay safe. He eventually gets involved with a young woman who gets inside his defenses and exposes the humanity underneath. Unfortunately, the feelings he has for the woman cause him to go against his better judgement and specifically violate the philosophy he outlined earlier in the film. In both cases, this leads to his downfall, and our criminal is not the type to be taken alive.
I'm sure there are others things that I've forgotten now, but stylistically, thematically and even in plot, the similarities between the two movies were quite striking. As I said at the top, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just that I had a hard time not thinking about this while sitting in the theater.
Have any of the rest of you seen this, and did you notice the same thing?
4 comments:
I'm not going to see this movie probably, but doesn't it take place in Tucson? John Dillinger was captured three minutes from my house in the Fox Theater (which I've attended) and his cronies were staying at the Hotel Congress, which I've eaten breakfast at and been drunk at. What I'm saying is, if I saw this movie, would it make feel special?
Hadn't thought of it, but now that you mention it, yeah, there is a similarity. I'm not the biggest fan of Mann's films. They are always well put-together, but it's as if he can't tell if he wants to make a great action movie or a great drama and always seems to fall on the wayside of both. But I digress. I haven't seen Heat since it came out in the 90's, but thinking back, I can certainly see what you're saying.
Since I have not seen either movie, I could not read beyond the 'spoilers' warning. But I'll come back to this post one day and quietly deposit my two cents.
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