Public Enemies
At the height of the Great Depression, John Dillinger and his gang raid a number of banks and due to the fact that local cops can do nothing when the robbers cross the borderlines, Dillinger and his guys walk away freely each time. The general public and media are making Dillinger even the most famous and beloved desperado since Jesse James due to his Robin Hood-style robberies.
Young administrator J. Edgar Hoover, however, sees Dillinger as a splinter in his eye and sees him as an opportunity to grow his power. He targets Dillinger as Public Enemy number one and appoints Bureau of Investigations agent Melvin Purvis with the task to either capture of kill Dillinger by any means necessary…
Sound and Vision:
We get excellent image quality that truly makes Blu-ray stand out over DVD like a giant over a dwarf. The image is crisp and sharp, we get a huge amount of detail and depth and if we really want to nitpick the only thing we can say is that the heightened contrast makes the white shine a bit and crushes detail in the black levels here and there. But that’s nitpicking.
Also the sound is of very high quality with excellent positioning and realistic sounding bullets flying around your head during shootouts while dialogues remain crystal clear and understandable at all times.
Public Enemies may not be the number one movie to show off your surround system as things aren’t as bombastic as in most modern day action movies, but when it comes to detail, this one rules.
Extras:
- Commentary
- Larger than Life Adversaries
- Michael Mann: Making Public Enemies
- Last of the Legendary Outlaws
- On Dillinger’s Trail
- Criminal Technology
- U-Control Picture-in-Picture
- U-Control Interactive Timeline
- BD-Live Gangster Movie Challenge
- Pocket Blu Enabled
- D-Box Motion Enabled
- My Scenes
Universal pulled out all the bells and whistles with this release and shows everything Blu-ray is capable of when it comes to the extras department. Nice!
Conclusion:
Public Enemies details the fall of America’s last “great” desperado, John Dillinger, and the rise of the FBI under the lead of J. Edgar Hoover. Don’t be fooled into believing you’ll get a historic documentary-like movie that shows how the FBI came to exist though, as the movie rather focuses on the characters of Dillinger, agent Melvin Purvis and Dillinger’s sweetheart Billie Frechette.
Mann does an excellent job in making something that’s almost a 1930s version of “Heat” and the only downpoints we can give are that it doesn’t really become clear why the general public is so in love with Dillinger nor do we get much depth on the character of Melvin Purvis as focus is more towards Dillinger’s relationship with Frechette. Especially seeing Purvis killed himself a couple of years after Dillinger was shot it would have been nice to get some more info on his character.
As a Blu-ray release, there really isn’t anything to complain. The movie looks extremely well and also the extras are worth checking out. Public Enemies may not be a bombastic action movie that jumps off your screen and blows your speakers to pieces but when it comes to detail, there are few that can match up.
If there’s one Blu-ray release that shouldn’t be left out of your collection from 2009, it’s this one.
10.0