Public Enemies
Universal Pictures | Release Date: July 1, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
11
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
EmpireIan Nathan
Intelligent and challenging: Mann's crime epic could take two viewings to fully absorb, but it's worth every devoted minute. Read full review
100
Film ThreatMatthew Sorrento
This is the purest of American narratives, and this, indeed, is one of our finest storytellers. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
A grave and beautiful work of art. Read full review
90
Village VoiceScott Foundas
Mann's exhilarating movie exists in a state of perpetual forward motion. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Simultaneously an art film and a crime film, Mann's latest work may not give you a ton to hang on to emotionally, but the beauty and skill of the filmmaking keep you tightly in its grasp. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This is a very good film, with Depp and Bale performances of brutal clarity. I'm trying to understand why it is not quite a great film. I think it may be because it deprives me of some stubborn need for closure. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Michael Mann's extraordinary Public Enemies is an unusual sort of gangster picture, a near-impressionistic recreation of the last year in the life of one of American history's most notorious bank robbers. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Public Enemies comes at you like Dillinger did: all of a sudden. It's movie dynamite. Read full review
88
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Without ever telling viewers what to think or how to feel, it raises more questions about the corruption of crime and crime fighting than any expose or thesis. Read full review
80
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The picture throws off an aura of wistfulness, which may be Mann's acknowledgment that of course he can't re-create the past. The best he can do is to honor the idea of it, storybook-style, and to remind us that before there was gangsta, there were gangsters. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
Cotillard doesn't look part Native American or sound like a Thirties Chicago moll, but damned if she isn't a sight and sound to behold. Whatever her technical limitations, she rises above them to breathe a flesh, blood, and battered verisimilitude into the part. You can't tear your eyes off her, any more than you can Mann's flawed but still engrossing picture. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
It's a fascinating bundle of contradictions -- authentic in a million details, deeply romanticized in others. Cool, calm and collected, this is more love story than gangster picture. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
A welcome adult alternative to summer's sophomoric blockbusters. The only transforming going on here is actors skillfully taking on roles of '30s-era gangsters and lawmen. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
The problem here is that while some of Mann's work is overwhelmingly great, the sum of it simply never compels. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
If Public Enemies lacks anything, it's something audiences can't legitimately expect to find: a certain EXTRA something. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineCammila Albertson
For people who loved "Heat," this is a tour de force. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It's quite engaging. It is competently constructed and often compelling, but it will not be mentioned in the same breath as some of its classic predecessors. Read full review
75
PremiereRobert Calvert
This is better than your average bio-pic. The dynamic established between the motivation of Bale’s and Depp’s characters is really what makes this film. Kudos also go out to Channing Tatum as Pretty Boy Floyd. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Mann excels at staging the chaotic bank jobs and bloody shootouts that were just a day at the office for Dillinger, but even at 140 minutes the movie is so dense with incident that there isn't much room for cultural comment or character development. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Public Enemies has incidental pleasures (its hi-def video palette is fascinatingly weird), but it’s only Depp’s sense of fun that keeps it from being a period gangster museum piece. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Marvelously detailed and meticulously crafted, an elegant evocation of Depression-era America and its fascination with crime. What the movie lacks is any sense of elation--it’s joyless by choice. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
As filmmaker Michael Mann takes pains to emphasize in his handsome, underheated gangster drama Public Enemies, the gent may have been murderous, but he had style. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Could have used a lot more grit. Without it, we're left with a crime movie fantasia that slips all too easily into the ether. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Ultimately, the movie's a bust. Read full review
60
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Yet, for all its skill, Public Enemies is not quite a great movie. There’s something missing--a sense of urgency and discovery, a more complicated narrative path, a shrewder, tougher sense of who John Dillinger is. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
You see the spark of 'this is cool!,' but you don't sense a purpose. The underconceived Public Enemies suffers from that lack of drive, though Johnny Depp is so urgent and charismatic as John Dillinger, he provides enough firepower to make the film legit. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Mann reduces a legendary game of cat-and-mouse to the size of a standard police procedural. His refusal to mythologize Dillinger’s exploits is audacious, but too much of Public Enemies feels disappointingly smaller than life. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
The film lacks the juice promised by the teaming of such extraordinary filmmakers with a cast as large as a Hooverville encampment. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Oddly, too, the film is somewhat shortchanged by its great star, Johnny Depp, who disappointingly has chosen to play Dillinger as self-consciously cool rather than earthy and gregarious. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Corliss
It lacks overall focus, and at the end you may have a question for Michael Mann: Why'dyou bother? [July 6, 2009, p.59]
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
Disappointing, curiously uninvolving. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The parts, in other words, promise a brilliant whole. So why is this movie one of the signal disappointments of the year? You have to go back to the basics: Public Enemies has everything going for it except a reason and a script. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Perhaps the most regrettable crime here is the way that Mann, trying to do too much, robs himself of a great opportunity. Here was a chance to capture the drama of the Thirties. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
It's like spending an afternoon--a long one--at a beautifully lit wax-museum display inspired by earlier gangster movies. Read full review
50
Washington PostDan Zak
It's also a double-barreled bummer. There's no excitement in the bank-robbing, no thrill of the chase, no emotion over justice served or thwarted. Depp's Dillinger is neither charming nor despicable, nor does he occupy that delicious gray area between the two. His spree unspools dispassionately, cold as a Colt .380. Read full review
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