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One of my all-time favorite films is Heat by Michael Mann.   Never before had a I seen such a truly amazing rendering of the “cops and robbers” dynamic of the crime film done in such a fair and balanced way to both sides.  Al Pacino as Lt. Vincent Hanna and Robert De Niro as Neil McCauley, expert thief; Here you had two of the greatest living actors of screen playing two extremely intense and driven characters on a collision course with each other.  Honestly, as the movie approached it’s incredibly tense finale, Mann’s careful plotting and direction leaves the audience on the edge of their seat for who will come out on top: the thief or the cop.  I’m hoping that we get treated to that level of crafstmenship with the forth-coming film from Mann for this summer, Public Enemies.  The film will follow John Dillinger as he, at the height of his infamy as one of America’s greatest bank robbers, is hunted by Special Agent Melvin Purvis of the FBI.  Johnny Depp plays Dillinger and Christian Bale plays Purvis.  I’m not sure how this movie can be disappointing when you have Batman vs. Capt. Jack Sparrow at the direction of the master of cops and robbers films.

Synopsis:  In the action-thriller Public Enemies, acclaimed filmmaker Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Academy Award® winner Marion Cotillard in the incredible and true story of legendary Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger (Depp)the charismatic bank robber whose lightning raids made him the number one target of J. Edgar Hoovers fledgling FBI and its top agent, Melvin Purvis (Bale), and a folk hero to much of the downtrodden public. No one could stop Dillinger. No jail could hold him. His charm and audacious jailbreaks endeared him to almost everyonefrom his girlfriend Billie Frechette (Cotillard) to an American public who had no sympathy for the banks that had plunged the country into the Depression.

But while the adventures of Dillinger’s ganglater including the sociopathic Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham) thrilled many, Hoover (Billy Crudup) hit on the idea of exploiting the outlaw’s capture as a way to elevate his Bureau of Investigation into the national police force that became the FBI. He made Dillinger America’s first Public Enemy Number One. Hoover sent in Purvis, the dashing “Clark Gable of the FBI”. However, Dillinger and his gang outwitted and outgunned Purvis’ men in wild chases and shootouts. Only after importing a crew of Western ex-lawmen (newly baptized as agents) who were real gunfighters and orchestrating epic betrayals from the infamous “Lady in Red” to the Chicago crime boss Frank Nittiwere Purvis and the FBI able to close in on Dillinger.

Release Date:  July 1st, 2009

{The song in the trailer is “Ten Million Slaves” by Otis Taylor}