By Matt Brunson

PUBLIC ENEMIES
**1/2
DIRECTED BY Michael Mann
STARS Johnny Depp, Christian Bale

Moviegoers hoping that Public Enemies would have been the film to save the summer season from its own worst impulses will be disappointed to learn that the Michael Mann production, while hardly part of the problem, is certainly no solution. A classy motion picture whose individual moments are greater than the whole, this period gangster saga may be filled with exciting gun battles yet can’t deliver the firepower in ways that matter the most: empathy, originality, and a willingness to burrow beneath the legend.

Forget about fidelity to the facts: Since this is a Hollywood production, historical accuracy matters less than streamlining a good story. So while real life might have dictated that the vicious bank robber Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) did in fact die four months after the imminently more likable John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), the filmmakers understand that our own sense of fair play (or narrative pacification; take your pick) demands that we see Nelson go down in a hail of bullets well before Dillinger has his own date with destiny. At any rate, Mann and fellow scribes Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman (adapting Bryan Burrough’s book Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-1934) capture what’s most important about Dillinger: his folk-hero appeal, and the way many Depression-era citizens would have found it possible to cheer an outlaw who spent his time sticking it to the banks.

Naturally, an actor of considerable charm would be required to play such a dashing rogue, so it’s obvious that the short list of candidates would basically consist of Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio (who was briefly involved with the project several years ago). Depp possesses the right demeanor for the role, and if he doesn’t register as powerfully as we would expect, that’s the fault of the writers, who make Dillinger more of an enigma than necessary. Still, the actor fares better than his two co-stars.

As Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent who pursues Dillinger with single-minded determination, Christian Bale is playing a character even more one-dimensional than his John Connor in Terminator Salvation. Purvis is supposed to be the dynamic point-counterpart to Dillinger (a favorite tactical ploy of Mann’s, as evidenced by past pictures like Heat and Collateral), but the role is so thinly written — and Bale tackles it with so little interest — that it’s hardly a fair fight.

Then there’s the case of La Vie en Rose Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, cast as Dillinger girlfriend Billie Frechette. Unless we’re discussing Bonnie and Clyde or Roger Corman cheapies, no film genre is less friendly to women than the gangster flick (not even the Western, which among other achievements allowed the likes of Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford to carve out memorable legacies). So until one brutal sequence toward the end, Cotillard has little to do but fret and fuss over her man’s line of work.

Yet what Public Enemies lacks in complexity, it makes up for in artfulness. Because the movie is lucky enough to have someone as skilled as Mann at the helm, it’s often able to camouflage its narrative limitations with stunning stylistics that, crucially, aren’t of the distant, hermetically sealed variety but rather infuse the piece with a different sense of purpose. Elliot Goldenthal’s soaring score, Dante Spinotti’s camera angles, and the sound team’s snap-crackle-and-pop approach (gun shots are frequently delivered with stunning clarity, a far cry from the sonic overkill of that infernal Transformers sequel) support the costume and set departments to fully immerse us in an era in which a man’s best friend is his weapon, and the manner in which he tips his fedora is as important as what’s in his heart or on his mind. That’s a remarkably shallow outlook, but with Public Enemies, that’s usually about as deep as it gets.

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By Matt Brunson

TERMINATOR SALVATION
***
DIRECTED BY McG
STARS Christian Bale, Sam Worthington

Here’s a trivial nugget that never ceases to amuse me: Back when writer-director James Cameron was initially prepping 1984’s The Terminator, one of his first choices to play the iconic title character wasn’t Arnold Schwarzenegger — it was O.J. Simpson. But Cameron soon changed his mind, stating that “people wouldn’t have believed a nice guy like O.J. playing the part of a ruthless killer.”

Oops.

So here we are 25 years later, with Simpson having gone off to, uh, do other things and Cameron himself splitting the franchise after two installments. And the primary question begged by Terminator Salvation must be, “Is this film necessary?” Not really. But here comes the follow-up query: “Is it worth the admission price anyway?” To which the answer is a resounding yes.

Make no mistake: Terminator Salvation is nowhere in the same league as the classic 1984 original (which was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry just this past year) or the pull-out-all-the-stops 1991 sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day. But it’s a step up from the belated (and Cameron-less) 2003 entry Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which surprisingly preserved the integrity of the narrative throughline but otherwise spun its wheels in regards to its characterizations and action set-pieces.

In much the same way, Terminator Salvation doesn’t especially deepen our understanding of the apocalyptic future world first glimpsed in Cameron’s original movie, and to say that it fails to flesh out the character of John Connor is an understatement. In many ways, it’s similar to X-Men Origins: Wolverine in that it covers material that doesn’t especially need further illumination. However, it’s better than Wolverine simply because while the mutant flick offered backstory that was wholly unnecessary, this piece can be defended for looking forward, with a dogged insistence on filling in the gaps that take us from Sarah Connor’s initial status as a mousy single woman (with ’80s big-hair, to boot!) to her son’s eventual standing as the savior of humanity. And in the process, it does so by throwing a few compelling twists into the saga, as well as revving up on action sequences that are more imaginatively staged than what’s been flooding the multiplexes as of late.

The most dramatic addition to the story is the character of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), who’s first spotted talking to a doctor (Helena Bonham Carter) as he sits on death row in our time but later reappears in the world of 2018, long past the Judgment Day that has seen the machines take over the world and destroy most of its human population (any reader who has no idea what I’m talking about should be hitting the DVD store rather than glancing at these words). John Connor (Christian Bale) will eventually run into Marcus and must determine whether he’s friend or foe, but for now, the intrepid fighter (still a low-level officer rather than the leader of the human resistance) has his mind on other matters — specifically, locating and protecting a teenage boy named Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin, also doing duty as the new Star Trek’s Chekov), who, after all, will eventually be sent back in time to save Sarah Connor and in the process impregnate her, thus leading to the birth of John Connor. And here you thought Marty McFly weaved a tangled web…

As with any yarn involving time travel and the possibility of creating alternate realities, it’s best not to concentrate too intently on the potential plotholes. Instead, one should be thankful that director McG and scripters John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris (who also co-wrote T3) have created a desolate future world that jibes completely with the one first imagined by Cameron way back when. Early complaints that the film is too bleak are ludicrous (maybe these reviewers were hoping for the campy post-apocalyptic disposition of Tank Girl?), and while the charges can’t be denied that Bale’s John Connor is rather humorless and one-note, what else are we to expect from a character who has spent his entire life burdened not only by the fact that the future is crappy but that he’s somehow expected to fix it all? At any rate, the movie itself isn’t completely devoid of humor, as witnessed by a few knowing winks at fans of the first films (including a cameo-of-sorts by a certain superstar).

As before, the Terminators remain frightening creations, not only in their awesome physicality but also in their relentlessness when it comes to search-and-destroy missions. As an added treat, this film also tosses in some T-variations, including metallic serpents, self-driven motorcycles (which figure in a genuinely exciting chase sequence) and a gigantic robot whose theater-rocking rumblings bring to mind the superb aural effects employed in Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.

Terminator Salvation is, to borrow from Macbeth, full of sound and fury, but whether it’s a tale told by an idiot (certainly, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle earned McG a battalion of haters) and signifying nothing will largely be determined by viewer preconceptions and a subsequent willingness to go with the flow. This isn’t a classic Terminator model, but as the fourth line in a brand that was created a quarter-century ago, it serves its purpose nicely.

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Over at LiVEJOURNAL, some enterprising person known as Ferd writes, “What do Christian Bale and Kermit the Frog have in common? More than you might realize… (and yes, clearly I have far too much time on my hands.)”

More photos after the jump.

To see more — TONS MORE — images, go to http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/27350111.html.

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Batman star arrested on assault allegations:

Batman star Christian Bale was arrested Tuesday over allegations of assault. Bale’s mother and sister say he assaulted them at a west London hotel Sunday, a day before the European premiere of his latest film, The Dark Knight. Police did not question Bale on Monday because of the premiere. U.S. representatives for Bale didn’t immediately return phone calls seeking a comment. Fox News

Missing soldier found alive:

A missing Fort Bliss, Texas, soldier reported missing was found by authorities Sunday after she was kidnapped and assaulted by her husband. The 34-year-old husband was arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping. The husband was apparently distraught after his wife told him she planned to leave him. AP via MSNBC

Wachovia reports huge loss:

Wachovia Corp. posted a nearly $9 billion loss for its second quarter Tuesday. Wachovia stock has dropped more than 75 percent in New York Stock Exchange composite trading since it spent $24 billion two years ago to buy Golden West just as house prices were peaking. CNN Money

Wartime leader of Bosnia hid with false identity:

Radovan Karadzic, the wartime leader of Bosnian Serbs, was arrested Monday night in Belgrade, officials said. A judge has ordered his transfer to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands to face genocide charges. Karadzic grew a long white beard to conceal his identity and even managed to practice medicine while hiding.AP via Yahoo News

Shades apart:

Twin boys born in Germany on July 11, are turning heads because both brothers were born with dramatically different skin colors. The older twin Ryan, takes after his white German father Stephan Gerth, while the younger, Leo, takes after his mother, Florence. Addo Gerth who is from Ghana. ABC News

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Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Never mind that I am a young woman in my 20s – last night at a screening of The Dark Knight I turned into an adolescent 12-year-old boy experiencing waves of hero-worship, drooling envy and armored lust that could only be brought on by a surge of testosterone.

If I still wrote Santa, Batman’s motorcycle (the Bat Pod — yes, it’s called the Bat Pod) would be at the top of my list. I suppose I’ll just have to be content to write fan mail to Armani-clad Christian Bale and sign my name “the future Mrs. Bruce Wayne.”

Call me.

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