Michael Mann

This week, Michael Mann adds to his directorial filmography with Public Enemies, the John Dillinger biopic starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and a handful of supporting players you’ll probably recognize. While the film is getting mixed reviews, I feel this is mostly a result of misplaced expectations and comparisons to Mann’s other films. In fact, another writer has quoted a former studio chairman who hadn’t seen the film but already decided “it’s going to take itself too seriously, it’s going to be way too long and it will not focus on entertaining the audience.” He went on to say “Michael Mann, in the past 15 years, has not made one movie I’ve liked.”

Obviously Mann’s films aren’t for everyone. And while most of his work, including Enemies falls into the crime genre, they are not the typical 95-minute action movies that “focus on entertaining the audience,” per se. This is why I like them.

Read the rest of this post at FreshRadar.