Public Enemies…. no
So I saw Public Enemies in the theatres the other day. Thought it’d be good, as I love the look and feel of the Thirties. Plus, being based on one of America’s most famous criminals, with lots of bank robberies and jailbreaks, how could this fail in any way to be exciting?
Well, apparently it managed to fail quite spectacularly. And this really is the only way to use the word “spectacularly” in conjunction with this movie. It was bad. and not in any way that make it amazingly bad. It was just bottom-of-the-pile, shouldn’t-have-been-made, not-sure-they-even-had-a-script bad. In terms of enjoyment factor, it came out to be only slightly less pleasant an experience than taking an electric sander to my nipples.
Slow, confusing, pointless, mindless. I’d like to use these words to describe the film but it was too lethargic and dull even for these. Indeed, the most fast-paced and clear cut piece of the film was when the screen told everyone at the beginning to turn off their cell phones. After that it became a long, drawn out, badly supervised mash of random dialogue with no point, plot, story, development, character, or goal. And this is while I was still trying to pay attention.
For you see I was not feeling well that evening. As I arrived an hour too early at the theatre I stopped by the food court and grabbed myself a fruit smoothie. Well I don’t know what kind of poor cleaning standards the food court has but by the time the movie rolled around my stomach was not doing too well.
On its own I could probably have held it all down. But no, the movie wasn’t content enough to just be poorly written and performed. Ooooh no, heaven forbid this film not try to offend me as physically as it was doing so to me mentally. For as it stands, whatever second-rate Allen Smithee director this film used decided he’d try to break convention. He’d try and do what almost every other decent film maker has learned is childish and amateurish. I am, of course, referring to the practice of filming with handheld “shakeycams.” This is the practice of zooming in waaaay too close and keeping all cameras handheld (non mounted/dolly’d/stabalised).
The theory is it makes the film feel fast and give the impression the audience is there. The reality is those that it doesn’t just make nauseous it just pisses off. It’s sloppy, it’s unprofessional, it’s uncreative, and if you have to try and disguise all the rest of your movie’s shortcomings with this edgy crap then really you have no business in hollywood. Not even in the gay porn industry (which, I would imagine, has probably also learned not to shoot films with shakeycams because of how poor quality it makes the movie seem).
So, between being ill and just being offended I walked out. I have no idea how the film ended and frankly, I don’t much care. This is the first film I’ve ever walked out on in a theatre, and tbh I’m actually glad I got food poisoning; if only for the fact it took me away from this terrible b-rate piece of hollywood refuse.