Public Enemies

I'm certain that the late hour and the two glasses of wine at dinner contributed to my reaction to this movie, but the movie must bear some of the blame. Unusual for me, I had difficulty following the plot and keeping up with the characters. The female characters were easy to distinguish, but their parts were generally minimal. And I could keep up with the two lead male characters played by Johnny Depp (John Dillinger) and Christian Bale (Melvin Purvis). The rest, however, were indistinguishable. Could it be because they all talked like gangsters and law enforcement officer, barely audible through clenched jaws? Or they all dressed alike? Whatever the cause, it certainly made me sympathize with the FBI officers who let Dillinger walk around, unrecognized, in their midst. And one more thing--and this must be the wine's fault--I blended Pretty-Boy Floyd and Baby-Faced Nelson into one character and couldn't figure out how he came back from the dead.
The depiction of violence and bloodshed didn't surprise me; I would have preferred less lingering, though.
Throughout, the movie teases us with promises of psychological insights into the three lead characters (Dillinger, Purvis, and Billie Frechette, played by Marion Cotillard) yet doesn't really deliver. Especially intriguing is Purvis' gradual disillusionment with J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, culminating (we're made to suppose) in his 1960s suicide. This point, however, seems to be one of the film's many liberties.

Caveats.