Michael Mann’s Public Enemies begs a comparison to Heat, his masterful crime film starring Robert De Niro as a bank robber and Al Pacino as the cop who’s pursuing him. In Public Enemies, those roles are occupied by Johnny Depp (as John Dillinger) and Christian Bale (as FBI agent Melvin Purvis), along with a myriad B-cast that covers much the same range as the secondary players inHeat. It’s a shame, then, that Mr. Mann, who gave us such masterful characterization and intense action in Heat, can only give us a shallow and ultimately unsatisfying glimpse at the final exploits of Dillinger.

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