Larger Than Life Adversaries (2009 Video) User Reviews

Filler for DVD addicts

[lor_ · 2 August 2010]

At least keeping it short at a mere 10-minutes, this interview film accompanying PUBLIC ENEMIES on its DVD is an unenlightening self-justification for the irrelevant Michael Mann opus.

We hear Mann and his fellow filmmakers explain their approach, chief interest of which is to see stars Bale & Depp with plenty of facial hair after watching them for a couple of hours sporting the '30s clean-cut look for their roles. For the umpteenth time we hear testimony to Bale's already-legendary penchant for research as he immerses himself in his characters pre-shooting. My mind wandered to conjure whether he had studied in depth the classic 70MM '30s film THE BAT WHISPERS to get inspired for his off-putting vocals in the current series of Nolan-piloted BATMAN films.

The irony of this short is that it (and Mann's feature) should be placed alongside Larry Buchanan's wacky movie THE OTHER SIDE OF BONNIE AND CLYDE. The now cult-ivated Z-movie director comes up with far more interesting material in his rather persuasive look at the lawman (Frank Hamer) who ended that duo's criminal career, than Mann and this docu achieve in limning the efforts of Melvin Purvis to wipe out Pretty Boy Floyd, Dillinger and the like. I grew up on the Edward G., Muni and Cagney gangster films, and they make Mann's latter-day stinker 100% superfluous. And Dale Robertson as Purvis on TV was a lot more fun in the role than current acting "genius" Bale.

A Hollywood propaganda piece and weird documentary

[SimonJack · 3/10 · 29 June 2018]

Michael Mann, the director of the 2009 film, "Public Enemies," hosts this 10-minute documentary. It's focus is on the two lead actors and their characters. Mann talks about the effort that Christian Bale and Johnny Depp put into playing their characters. Bale played FBI agent Melvin Purvis and Depp played Public Enemy No. 1, John Dillinger. Two others also comment in this short film. One is Bryan Burrough, author of the book of the same title on which the movie is based. The other is Alston Purvis, son of the former FBI agent.

This is a strange documentary. Mann, Depp and Bale say some weird things. To prepare for their roles, in 2008 the actors went to the hometowns of Dillinger and Purvis. Depp says that he went to Mooresville, Indiana, "about 60 to 70 miles from Owensboro (Kentucky) where I was born." He was just off by 100 miles - the towns are 170 miles apart. Depp says, "I saw where he'd grown up. The farm still stands, which was super helpful for me." One wonders how that would be "super helpful" to his acting.

Depp says he went to the Dillinger Museum in northern Indiana. They have the pants Dillinger was wearing the night he was killed. Depp says, "I put 'em on," and he laughs. "We're pretty much the same size," he says. Does anyone else think that is very weird -- trying on the pants of a dead killer? Well, it gets weirder.

Mann then says, "Well, if he has the right shoes, the right clothes, and the right fabrics and it feels the right way on him, it helps him... it helps him get there, below...Although, I think that this character of John Dillinger becomes deeply inside of him." Huh? That's a real new one on me - and probably would be fodder for psychologists. That wearing the clothes, the fabrics and the shoes of someone from the past helps one get into that person's character. It begs a question of Mann: what if it didn't "feel the right way on him?"

Depp then says, "It was just to try to get into Dillinger's head, you know. Or allow him to get into mine." So, he really wanted to think and feel like a killer? In the old days of Hollywood, good actors could act their parts without becoming them. And, except for some virtuous, heroic or stately figures, I don't recall any actors before wanting to be consumed by a character in order to better play that person.

By Mann's thinking then, would Daniel Day-Lewis have done a more real Abe Lincoln -- if he could have tried on the clothes that Lincoln wore the night he was shot? Or, how about Ralph Belamy doing so much better as Franklin D. Roosevelt -- if only he could have felt the fabric of FDR's clothing around him? What sheer nonsense. Did either of these guys even graduate from grammar school?

Bale wasn't as weird, but what he said was quite strange. Purvis's son, Alston, says, "Christian Bale... spoke to a lot of people who had known my father as children." Purvis was born in 1903, so in 2008 those would have been people who were at least 100 years old. Does anyone believe there were "a lot" of those people living in 2008? Or that they could recall Melvin Purvis as a kid 90 to 95 years ago? Who can believe this stuff?

Apparently, Bale went to do some research at the FBI training center. It's located on the Quantico Marine Corps Base in northern Virginia. He says, "In my experience with all the FBI guys around Quantico, I found that we were actually telling them a lot of information about Purvis, because, in the FBI records, so much of his history had just been erased." Then, where did Bale get his information about Purvis? Obviously, it was from Burrough's 2005 book, maybe other books, and/or magazine articles and newspaper reports from the time. So, we're lead to believe that none of the FBI people would read those same books and articles. About one of their own and the birth of the FBI? Were all those FBI people Bale talked to real dummies? Or did he really "experience" such ignorance among them?

As this documentary winds down, Mann describes the scene in the movie when Purvis goes to visit Dillinger in jail. The two men never met in real life, so this is total fiction. Mann admits that up front. So, now, he describes this meeting that never took place, and says, "Dillinger is using this opportunity to find out as much as he can about Purvis, and as they're separating, just in a quiet voice, Johnny said, 'You ought to get yourself another line of work, Melvin.' And it just stops Purvis." Then Bale says, "Melvin is quite shaken by that, that this man was able to tell him something about himself, which was shocking because maybe it was true."

What tripe! What hogwash! They make up something and tell it as though it's true. This short documentary shows what lengths Hollywood will go to, to promote itself and its products. Never mind that it likely will soon turn into the true history in the minds of a public that is non-discriminating and that just wants to be entertained. I think it shows how little Hollywood thinks of the audience, as thinking human beings. While many of us may be gullible, some still have brains enough to see through crocks such as this.