Review: Public Enemies

For the most part, I love this movie! Holy Cow, do I!
Story: basically a somewhat fictionalized view of the final days of John Dillinger - a famous Bank Robber during the Depression and "Public Enemy No. 1" Since he is a historical figure, I don't think I will be giving too much away by saying that.
Dillinger is played by Johnny Depp - and I can't tell you how amazing he is. I love Johnny Depp because he is a bit of a chameleon. He is known for these wierd Tim Burton roles, but if you look over his entire span of work, he has a wide variety of experiences under his belt. He's just brilliant, that's all.
Melvin Purvis is played by Christian Bale, and it was nice to see him outside of the Batman movies. I haven't seen much of his work outside of those, but he seems to be also very good. Very meticulous about portraying a character, down to the mannerisms and habits. He's the "bad" guy, but he's not, and you can see the lines that he doesn't want to cross as he crosses them.
Cinematography in this movie is AMAZING. There are some really beautiful shots and quite interesting ones too. The artistic team did an amazing job recreating both the high class and the low desperation of the 1930s. I'll say it again: we need to bring back those fashions (and many other things), at least them men's fashions. There is something about it that is so suave. I will say that the modern love of violence, bullets, and action is quite present. I can't really complain, because this is a more realistic way of portraying these stories, and this is probably what it was really like, but for me anyways, I just get riddled from the constant noise and the fast action of those longer shootout sequences. That was really my only real complaint. Also didn't need the sex scene in there. But that is a whole other thing, which will be this whole other paragraph.
Okay, so I don't want to slam on the recent generations fascinations with sex scenes, but most of the time, I find them unnecessary. Don't get me wrong, I like romance, and I understand that sex is a natural part of the human existence as well as an expression of romance (sometimes), but (sometimes) its more ugly than it is beautiful, and again, most of the time, a waste of screen time. I'm old fashioned, but I like the old hints into the fade out into the morning after. You don't have to show it, we know what goes on in between. And we used to be satisfied with that too. Plus so many movies now use it as a cheap device. I just think it is an easy way out now. Back in the day, directors/writers/actors could make the audience feel the "sex" (as a feeling, not the action) without having to show it. Have we deteriorated so much that this is not possible anymore?
Back to the movie: It was great!
4 and 1/2 out of 5 stars