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
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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