MovieChat Forums > Public Enemies (2009) Discussion > I hated Dillinger and wanted him to die....

I hated Dillinger and wanted him to die. What did I miss?

posted 14 years ago by iamdoingthat
46 replies | jump to latest

I'm a big fan of Michael Mann and Johnny Depp, so I was expecting to like this movie, but after it was over I felt like I must have missed the point, or am otherwise too dense to understand what the film was trying to do.

I saw a film about a cop-killing, hostage-taking/kidnapping, human-shield-using criminal. Call me hypersensitive, but any of those three acts alone show total disregard for the value of human life. And for what, to rob banks because you "like nice clothes and fast cars?" What a scumbag.

The public decides to celebrity-worship this man merely because he's charming and handsome? Is that all? I think there was a quote about him not stealing the public's money. Were people so dense to think that, because Dillinger robbed from the bank vault, it wasn't the public's money? Or was society so depraved during the Depression that, as long as it's not coming out of _my_ wallet, it's glamorous and permissible? "I wish I could be like Dillinger and rob banks instead of working in a factory. What a dream!"

I was lukewarm to Purvis, who just seemed like a flat "determined cop" character. But the epilogue line of him taking his own life over 20 years after killing Dillinger . . . am I supposed to believe that the trauma of killing Dillinger led to a suicide 20+ years later? Or is that just a throw-in line to make the viewers who were upset about Dillinger's death say "Ha! Serves you right copper!"

I can't imagine this is how Mann wanted me to feel during the movie, so what did I miss?

[–] trompos 13 years ago

I know xactly how you feel, this whole movie was trash and the end piece about Purvis WAs meant to make people say HAHA died copper die. But alas, he died accidently trying to extract a jammed cartrige in the chamber of his pistol.

If you love Jesus Christ and are 100% proud of it, copy this and make it your signature!

[–] shurbanm 12 years ago

They just told you about his life after these events. Nobody's saying he committed suicide. It said "died from his own hand".
The more pertinent piece is that he quit the FBI a few days after these events.

[–] spielberto 8 years ago

Back then, suicide was REALLY a stigma.
The guy dies alone with a gun....at home.
He wasn't at the gun range.
They just didn't want an FBI hero, the guy that got Dillenger, to be stigmatized as a 'loser' who is burning in Hell for the sin of suicide. So it becomes, 'he was cleaning his gun' and it 'accidentally went off' sorta thing.

[–] davin_fealth 13 years ago

you must have missed a few things. yes he took hostages. and use htem as sheilds but he never shot at innocent people unless he was fired apoon first. he took hostages and tied them to a tree one of the hostgates says "we will freeze out here" and Dillianger said "you will wiggle your way out of that in 10 minutes" he didn't needless kill people like babyface nealson.

The American outlaw was a symbol of true freedom in the 20's

it seems you may be too naive and short sighted to understand the movie.

[–] retnug 13 years ago

What I took away from this movie is people who like baseball, movies, fast cars, good clothes, whiskey, women, and robbing banks will die in the end. I think he deserved it and I don't see why he was so popular with the people. Maybe if the movie would have explained that instead of focusing on the dumb relatiomship between Dillinger and Billie it would make more sense. But worse than Dilinger was Billie.

Was she too stupid to realize Dillinger was a criminal and if you were part of his gang the law wouldn't hesitate to arrest or kill you?

Was she also too stupid to realize Dillinger was basically responsible for the guy (did they ever give his name?)beating her?

For some strange reason she still loves Dillinger even though all of the things that happened to her were his fault. I felt no sympathy for either of them.

I didn't hate this movie, I just didn't like it. There were other parts I actually enjoyed but overall I didn't like it.

[–] jones7418 13 years ago

LOL. Maybe you guys would have to watch "Young Dillinger", a 1960's potboiler, replete with bad acting and writing and starring Nick Adams, to appreciate "Public Enemies". Watch it for a good laugh, if nothing else. It's a hoot and a half!

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Petronius Arbiter II 12 years ago

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069976/board/nest/93777245?d=191275444#19 1275444

"I don't deduce, I observe."

[–] shauncoop 13 years ago

Agreed. Billie fell in love with Dillinger because he gave her a fur coat!

[–] shurbanm 12 years ago

I am sorry but how old are you?
People fall in love not based on what their occupation is.
And obviously she knew why she was beaten.

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

the only general thing I will agree with in any of that, is to summarize it by generally saying that Billie knew she was hooking up with a high-profile criminal, and supposedly would have known that the likely eventual outcomes are one or both locked up, or one or both DOA.

She did it anyway, he was a charmer, but was also smitten by her, and you know, they were not worried about their taxes, their children, or their HMO bills, they were worried about being in love and being together and willing to pay the price to be so.

But I can see that you are quite the romantic fool..I'm sure that you will get that.

[–] franzkabuki 13 years ago

Yeah, Mann´s too keen on trying to humanize the scumbag and portray him as some kinda romantic anti-hero - starting with casting Depp with his apparently everfresh pretty-boy charms.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] shauncoop 13 years ago

I've gotta agree with your assessment 100%.

[–] Jelvit 12 years ago

Yeah, Mann´s too keen on trying to humanize the scumbag and portray him as some kinda romantic anti-hero - starting with casting Depp with his apparently everfresh pretty-boy charms.

There are enough gangster movies that romanticize criminals. This isn't one of them in my opinion.
If they had wanted Dillinger to be charming he would have been charming and not some kind of cold blooded money hungry murderous most of the time kind of ruthless and bland criminal. I mean he's played by Depp who has tons of charms if he wants to! But the way Dillinger was portrayed had next to no charms. So apparently they didn't want him to be charming - at least I think so. Everytime I started to sympathize with the criminals they robbed a bank / took hostages / shot at and killed people.

I didn't see much humanizing of either the cops side or the gangsters in that movie - not in the 90 minutes of it that I watched. They were both ruthless and kind of insane in their obsession (crime / catching criminals).

I don't really get what this movie wants to tell me either. I think it's just kind of depressing and bland. But crime thrillers are not really my genre.

[–] sunyboy1 12 years ago

Actually in real life Dillinger DID kill a cop by mistake. He was meaning to shoot him in the leg but the cop fell forward into the line of fire.

Long Live the New Flesh!

[–] Petronius Arbiter II 12 years ago

Not correct. In real life, one of two things happened:

(a) Some people, including some in Dillinger's family, think Dillinger wasn't there at all, at the East Chicago bank job. According to them, some other gang member-- Harry Copeland?-- actually shot officer (William) Patrick O'Malley. Or else it was John Hamilton, who witnesses definitely said was present, but whom they may have gotten mixed up with Dillinger or whomever. (I have my own opinions on the matter, and I'm keeping them to myself.)

(b) Let's say it was Dillinger. If so-- or if not so, for that matter-- whoever it was, there was nothing accidental about it. Dillinger ordinarily shot to frighten, not to kill or even maim, and was exceptionally good at firing in someone's general direction without actually hitting them.

But O'Malley didn't know the gang members were wearing bulletproof vests. He fired directly at Dillinger or whomever, hitting the chest but the vest deflected the bullet as it was designed to do. So Dillinger, or whomever, considered it a clear case of self-defense. If O'Malley got another shot in, the bulletproof vest might not work so well a second time.

"I don't deduce, I observe."

[–] bostonmovienut 12 years ago

Melvin Purvis committed suicide because
A. He had cancer and
B. Because J. Edgar Hoover ruined his career

As for hating Dillinger, yes quite frankly I do think you're being hypersensitive, did you come in expecting Dillinger to be Mother Teresa?, Man was a criminal most of his life and would die a criminal. In reality I'm sure Dillinger was much nastier than they portrayed him to be in the movie. And you're actually shocked he robbed banks to get nice clothes and fast cars? Really? He wasn't Robin Hood, no real-life criminal is. While yes there is the cliche'd criminal who robs to feed his family there, in real life there 1 out of 100 at least. All criminals who rob/sell drugs/guns etc. do it to live the good life.

That being said I didn't enjoy the movie either, it was incredibly inaccurate factually and he didn't develop the character of Melvin Purvis who in reality wasn't just the "flat determined cop character". Mann seemed to busy with the camera work to care about anything else.

[–] the_departed94 11 years ago

1. I'm sure I read somewhere than Purvis didn't commit suicide, he was cleaning his gun when it accidently discharged.

2. I remember when i first watched the movie and i thought the ending was very powerful. Mainly because of billy, she's the one you feel sorry for, not Dillinger. Plus the score is very moving.

I'm with Mann, I don't really care about historical accuracy or making the movie longer to accommodate screen time for the supporting actors, the movies about Dillinger and it works fine. He was making a sleek crime thriller, not a 3 hour long documentary 100% accurate biopic.

[–] InternationaleClique 11 years ago

1. I'm sure I read somewhere than Purvis didn't commit suicide, he was cleaning his gun when it accidently discharged.
---------------------------------------------------

Riight. Like the first thing a seasoned gun handler does not do is to remove any bullets from the chamber when cleaning it.

Back then they often made up stories like that when people offed themselves to alleviate the shame.

[–] Blarhhh 11 years ago

Riight. Because no seasoned gun handler has ever shot themself accidentally.

But anyway, the FBI did believe that it was suicide. It was later that people came to believe that he may have accidentally died while trying to remove a jammed tracer. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dillinger/peopleevents/p_purvis.html

"No Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?"

[–] InternationaleClique 11 years ago

Riight. Because no seasoned gun handler has ever shot themself accidentally.
---------------------------------------------------

While cleaning their gun? Then they wouldn't be seasoned. It's impossible to have an accident if you know what you are doing.

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

yeah...here's the thing.

You maybe don't believe that any electrician ever got electrocuted.

[–] Sacotra 11 years ago

The public decides to celebrity-worship this man merely because he's charming and handsome? Is that all? I think there was a quote about him not stealing the public's money. Were people so dense to think that, because Dillinger robbed from the bank vault, it wasn't the public's money? Or was society so depraved during the Depression that, as long as it's not coming out of _my_ wallet, it's glamorous and permissible? "I wish I could be like Dillinger and rob banks instead of working in a factory. What a dream!"

I found the following on a blog (link below), which I think explains what you're confused about here:

So I was a bit disappointed in the Public Enemies movie. All the actors are well cast, but there's something a little "off" about the finished product. Part of it, to me anyway, is that I don't think Michael Mann did a very good job at capturing the zeitgeist of the times. Yeah, he lets you know that America was in the midst of the Great Depression, but he didn't really show just how bad times were then. People were hungry and desperate, and really, really angry with banks, police officers and federal agents. The banks were foreclosing, and the cops and the feds were kicking people out of their homes. Not to mention the head-busting that was going on when workers tried to unionize. Bank robbers like John Dillinger and Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd became folk heroes because there was something of a Robin Hood quality to them, a way to vicariously give some "payback" to the banks and authority figures who were oppressing the everyman of this country.

Source: http://dawnieland.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/my-cousin-was-gangsters-moll. html

[–] bradtroy136 11 years ago

Your an idiot. You wouldn't know how to "feel" unless the p.c. police permitted you a license for it.

Perhaps the public celebrated these "criminals" because at least they were robbing from the real monsters who were (and still are) printing "money" out of thin air, enslaving us into debt.

Because unlike the blind sheep of today, perhaps, they frowned more at the condescending idea of a centralized government equipped with it's now provenly inefficient fbi "tzar" to "protect" the public.

[–] Captain_Wesker 8 years ago

Mmmm...juicy amygdala .

---
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .

[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

yes, these guys were those days 'Occupy" movement.

Well, actually, they were probably nothing like that, not political as such at all, perhaps began with some sense of personal social grievance and just liked stealing large sums of money and getting the hot bitches bad guys always seem to get.

Also, far less annoying and more likeable than such-as Occupy and BLM Gladwrap-ninjas.
Too bad today's political protestors can't share the Yeggs' typical fate, frankly...now THAT would be a great movie ending.

[–] Captain_Wesker 8 years ago

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