Public Enemies Movie - Amateurish?

[russ_watters]

Anyone seen Johnny Depp's (and Christian Bale's) "Public Enemies" about John Dillinger? It got mostly pretty great reviews, but I'm about halfway through and I'm really having a tough time watching it. It is far too amateurish for my taste. I'm not clear on if it was done on purpose, but there is essentially no set lighting, no post production sound mixing, no color or brightness correction, and very few dollies, tripods, or steadycams. Basically, it looks and sounds like you shot it with your cell phone camera.

I've found some reviews that praise it for this, but though I find the acting excellent, I find the movie all but unwatchable. Here's a review that thinks the way I do:

It was almost rough enough I thought I was at a sneak months before the release date. So poorly lit and sound recorded I thought I was watching a low budget Indie...

The Cinematographer and a handfull of Sound Guys worked on L.A. Confidential. The Steadi-cam Op is from Le Vie en Rose. Grips from Road to Perdition, Lighting Techs from CSI, House, 24… These are some seasoned pros. So why is it so technically poor? They had a 35mm adapter with film lenses, but it seems they only chose to use it for about a dozen shots out of the whole film. No-body and no-thing was lit correctly (I think they honestly used natural light in nearly every shot), and the audio mix was non-existent, as well as the pure recording of audio was apparently so bad that they had to amp dialogue here and there just so lines could be heard, which inevitability amps the background noise so you get this sudden burst of sounds like you’ve just popped your ears after takeoff. All of which is totally in contrast to great acting, dynamite cast, great costuming and set design, locations, props, music. I have no specific complaints about the directing, although you have to wonder why Michael Mann didn’t say “Why is it so dark, dialogue so quiet, and shot so needlessly shaky? What is this, Cops?”

In addition to the pure and undeniably low quality footage they were producing, the camera work really stood out. The first shot of the film is wobbly and bumpy like the camera guy was fumbling to hold onto the camera. Immediately I thought, “Well that was weird.” But the rest of the movie carried on with the same kind of bumps and shakes.

http://boilingsky.com/2009/07/public-enemies-what-the-what/

The Rotten Tomatoes page: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10009526-public_enemies/#

Opinions?

 

[Evo]

Sounds like some snorted the money for the production?

 

[lisab]

I can't wait for the fad of bouncy cameras to finally fade into the sunset. A few minutes of it is fine but a whole movie? Ugh, no way.

 

[Proton Soup]

low budget = high profit margin

 

[leroyjenkens]

I hate that shaky camera crap. Is it supposed to imitate how you would see it if you were actually there? Are they assuming we all have Parkinson's?
When there's a fight in certain action movies, then you really see some shaky camera action. It's like they stuck the camera in one of those paint can shakers.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

The first time I tried to watch The Kingdom I could not get through more than the beginning because the wobbly cam was too annoying. It may have been because I was watching on my laptop close up. I watched it again later and got over it.

I have not seen this movie yet. I only just heard about it and thought about going to see it but I guess maybe I will wait for it to hit video.. err DVD... or bluray.. something.

 

[arunma]

Yeah, the shaky camera thing annoys me too. But I saw Public Enemies this past winter, and it didn't seem so bad. About five minutes into the movie I pretty much forgot about it. Guess I wouldn't make much of a movie reviewer.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Yeah, the shaky camera thing annoys me too. But I saw Public Enemies this past winter, and it didn't seem so bad. About five minutes into the movie I pretty much forgot about it. Guess I wouldn't make much of a movie reviewer.

I believe that it is supposed to mimic eye movement. I wonder if they have algorithms that are actually supposed to model this.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Funny you should say this, we had a movie night in Saturday. Everyone hated it apart from me (it's not the best, but it's by no means bad), we ended up turning it off. I got the DVD though, so that's a bonus.

It lacked drama (even i'll admit that), and at the start the shaky camera was quite off putting at first, then then I really didn't notice it.

 

[Evo]

It lacked drama (even i'll admit that), and at the start the shaky camera was quite off putting at first, then then I really didn't notice it.

I wonder if your brain starts to adapt to the jerky movements and smoothes it out?

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I wonder if your brain starts to adapt to the jerky movements and smoothes it out?

I was thinking that maybe, if it mimic's eye movement, initial annoyance could be due to your eye movement "fighting" the cam movement and adapting to it may be a sort of 'syncing' of the two.