Director Michael Mann's films are often about cops or criminals, and it doesn't really matter which, because in Mann's world, they're just flip sides of the same coin: hardboiled, driven, type-A personalities like James Caan in "Thief" (1981), Tom Cruise in "Collateral" (2004), or both Al Pacino and Robert de Niro in "Heat" (1995). These guys — and they are always guys — love nothing so much as the adrenaline thrill they get from living on the edge, whether that involves breaking the law or hunting down those who do so.
In that respect, Mann's "Public Enemies" — a portrait of legendary 1930s bank robber John Dillinger — is more of the same. With Johnny Depp as the charismatic criminal who pulled off over two dozen bank raids and broke out of jail twice, and Christian Bale as his relentless pursuer, FBI agent Melvin Purvis, "Public Enemies" often feels like a 1930s remix of "Heat," Mann's most perfect distillation of his themes.
Dillinger rose to national fame during The Great Depression, when the economy had collapsed and banks were either failing or foreclosing on people's mortgages. (My, how times change.) As such, criminals like Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde Barrow and Pretty Boy Floyd were viewed with grudging admiration by much of the public, who saw them as taking a little revenge on the hated banks. Of course, there was also the fact that they also shot people dead in cold blood.