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Public Enemies, a review by Dragonfire

I went to see Public Enemies today.  It is a really good movie overall.

The movie deals with the war on crime, mostly against bank robbers, that J. Edgar Hoover started in the early 1930's, with the most attention give to John Dillinger.  Hoover assigns agent Melvin Purvis to lead the hunt for Dillinger.  A woman named Billie becomes involved with Dillinger, which also causes problems for her.

Dillinger is already a well known criminal when the movie starts, though some of the bank robberies he committed are dealt with during the movie.  A few other well known bank robbers like Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson are in the movie, though not as much.  Some scenes do move a bit slower, but the pace moves along at a good speed for the most part.  the subject is very interesting and made for an entertaining movie.  The movie is based on a book.  I haven't read the book, though I did see it a few days ago.  It sounds like the book has a broader focus than the movie, covering the other bank robbers more and not just focusing on Dillinger.  From some research I did after watching the movie, it seems like the order of some events was changed.

There is a decent amount of action in the movie, mostly provided by various shoot outs.  The action scenes work well for the most part, though there shaky camera work does turn up in them, which I find very annoying.  The violence does get graphic at times, but it fits for the story.  Dillinger, his men, and the agents after them are all heavily armed and most of them don't hesitate to shoot.  The agents - from the Bureau of Investigation, which became the FBI a little while after the events shown in the movie - were quick to shoot first and ask questions later.  Some of them were very willing to beat or torture information about of suspects.  One agent basically beat the hell out of a woman trying to get information, which was disturbing to see.  Hoover had basically given his approval for that type of interrogation earlier, but Purvis didn't seem to agree with that..at least where it came to the woman. 

The acting is absolutely wonderful, especially from Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.  Depp became Dillinger and made the character come to life.  Bale wasn't in as much of the movie, but I think he did really well as Purvis.  In Terminator: Salvation, Bale ended up using a voice for John that is very similar to what he used for Batman, especially in a few scenes.  That didn't happen in this movie.  I haven't seen Marion Cotillard in anything else before, but she did very well as Billie.  J. Edgar Hoover came across as a bit arrogant and was willing to do whatever he felt was necessary to make his Bureau look good. 

I really liked this movie.  Fans of Johnny Depp should definitely give it a chance. 

 

I did get a review posted on Epinions if anyone wants to take a look.

Public Enemies

(From Public Enemies on July 2nd, 2009)

Wanted, a review by addicted2dvd

Wanted (2008/United States) IMDb |Wikipedia |Trailer | Universal Studios Home Entertainment (United States) Director: Timur Bekmambetov Writing: Michael Brandt (Screenwriter), Derek Haas (Screenwriter), Chris Morgan (Screenwriter), Michael Brandt (Story By), Derek Haas (Story By), Mark Millar (Original Material By), J. G. Jones [J.G. Jones] (Original Material By) Length: 110 min. Video: Widescreen 2.35:1 Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio: 5.1, Spanish: DTS: 5.1, French: DTS: 5.1 Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

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Stars:
James McAvoy as Wesley
Morgan Freeman (1937) as Sloan
Angelina Jolie as Fox
Terence Stamp as Pekwarsky
Thomas Kretschmann as Cross

Plot:Extras:

• Scene Access
• Deleted Scenes
• Featurettes
• Multi-angle
• Storyboard Comparisons
• Picture-in-picture
• BD-Live
• U-Control

This one is a pure fun action film... a leave your brain at the door, suspend disbelief action joyride. Knowing this is a comic book film helped me suspend disbelief enough to enjoy this one quite a bit. I normally really like Morgan Freeman and he was good in this one. But this time my favorite character had to be Fox played my Angelina Jolie.I thought she was a cool character and done well. Of course this is coming from someone that never read the comic to compare. So I don't know how loyal the film is to the comics. But if you are ever in the mood for an action flick you don't want/need to think about... this one is worth the time put in to watch it.



(From Within My Lifetime: 2017 Edition on January 3rd, 2017)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: Garak has joined in on the operation to attack the Founder's home world. The fleet of romulan Warbirds and cardassian warships is taking course to the Omarion Nebula. Now it's his job to interrogate Odo whether he knows something he didn't put into his report to Starfleet. Sisko takes the Defiant against explicit orders and follows them to get his chief of security back.

My Opinion: Now the numbers start to increase and become more realistic. With the Federation the Klingons, the Romulans and the Cardassians we know races that occupy the space of at least one entire quadrant of our galaxy. This space is approx. 4 billion square light years and that doesn't even acknowledge that space has a third dimension. Yet the greatest battle known to Star Trek was the one of Wolf 359: 39 Starfleet ships vs. one Borg cube.
Now we've seen a battle between 20 and 150 ships. 150 ships, that's a dimension we haven't seen before and the Dominion war will provide us with even greater numbers and as I said, that seems only realistic given the vastness of space.
As for the other aspects of that episode: It was a good conclusion to this story and I found it interesting how Tain was still analyzing the situation even though he was about to die.

Synopsis: While on Bajor, Sisko has found the plans for a bajoran solar sail spacecraft. The Bajorans claim to have reached Cardassia with these kind of ships and Sisko wants to build one just to prove that it is actually space-worthy. And his son thinks about leaving for Earth, to do an internship to study writing.

My Opinion: When Jake was introduced in the pilot I thought that it was a good idea to see that a Starfleet officer has a family. But I also thought that he would have a minor role, to appear once in a while and then disappear again. But I like Jake's friendship with Nog and I like how he has developed. The kind of interaction between Jake and his father in this episode, as well as the interaction between O'Brien and Bashir makes me like DS9 more than TNG.

Synopsis: Brunt. FCA. (Ferengi Commerce Authority). He comes to the station and closes Quark's bar. Why? Because Quark's mother Ishka is conduction businesses and she's making profit! Quark and Rom return home and Quark wants her to sign the confession. Meanwhile Jakes tries fix up his father with a certain freighter captain: Kasidy Yates.

My Opinion: Brunt is the IRS guy from hell. I like him. He is a guarantee for a good story. And I like his actor (Jeffrey Combs) who will play both Brunt as well as (in later seasons) Weyoun - in one episode even both IIRC. And I like Kasidy. Her role here is much more likeable than the one Penny Johnson will play on 24: President David Palmer's (ex-)wife Sherry. And I liked how the writers tried to argue against the upkeep of outdated traditions and roles.

Synopsis: The First Minister has died and Kai Winn is temporarily holding both offices but she plans on running for the First Minister's office, too. But she has a problem: Shakaar, former head of Kira's resistance cell, is unwilling to return farming equipment. He was promised that he could have it for a year but Winn wants it back - now. She sends Kira to negotiate.

My Opinion: Yet another good story. I like all stories where Winn loses a fight. And I also liked that all the former resistance fighters refused to fight one another.

(From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Marathon on November 1st, 2008)