Public Enemies (2009)

RATING:	60%
FORMAT:	DVD

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Handsomely-mounted but largely-ineffectual crime drama; recalling the great days of Warner Bros - even though the glory days of gangster movies are long over (as they are with musicals and westerns).

This film has nothing new or insightful to say about women who love criminals nor the savagery of criminals nor the counter-savagery of the state’s response to criminality. Like the modern-day War on Terror, the war on crime here simply ensures crime remains an endemic part of the culture because there is no attempt to understand why anyone would choose a life of crime. Now that would make a profound premiss for a good crime story, if anyone thought it worth telling. Instead, we have a charismatic and hard-to-contain criminal who is as determined as the cops, but no-one we can really admire as we do, say, with the similarly-resourceful Mesrine.

Worst of all, Marion COTILLARD is wasted as the gangster’s moll in a role she could have quietly played in her sleep.

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