A couple of days ago I went to the cinema to watch “Public Enemies“, also known as “Johnny D”. I’ve been waiting for this film for a few month now, since the first time I saw its trailer.
Sadly, it turned out to be a disappointment. There were a few good moments, yes, but overall it was rather empty. The story wasn’t interesting or engaging. The characters were many and shallow. There was practically no drama. And there was very little of action. Relations between different characters were also very vague, partially because there is very little dialogue and nothing happens. So you can’t really make it out who thinks what of who and how they all are getting along.
It was also a disappointment technically. First of all, I am getting pretty irritated by the shaking camera these days. It wasn’t fun back in Blair witch times, and it isn’t fun today. Soft focus and purposeful mistakes which are aimed at creating an old film effect were destructing and annoying. Also, the choice of sound effects and music was strange at best. During the rare gun fights, the sound was quite crisp and surrounding. But during some other scenes it was either too distant or too quiet.  Frequent moments of no music and no dialogue without dramatic pauses felt very much like an amateur cinema. And on top of that, the film runs for 2 hours 20 minutes. Way too much.
My overall rating – 3 stars. There was a lot of potential though.