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Rules Don’t Apply (2016)-When you think about it, it’s kind of strange that Warren Beatty has only directed five films which is surprising considering his capital in Hollywood: He has a directing Oscar win under his belt, he’s renowned for his charm (in more ways than one, hint hint), and he has political tastes that align well with Hollywood. The last of them is a features iconoclast Howard Hughes. It’s likely not surprising that an iconoclast and ladies’ man like Beatty would relate to a visionary of a historical figure who had a big appetite for wealth, status, and woman. For those who thought Beatty was a shallow product of his era (who wasn’t a rebel in the 60s?), it’s admirable that Beatty knocks Hughes off his pedestal. The story is told from the point of view of a young woman (Marla, Lily Collins) who falls prey to Hughes’s charms and is left to suffer the consequences (AKA a pregnancy, he ignores until the epilogue).
In fact, it’s hard to find a more pessimistic take on Hollywood. Through the eyes of Marla, Hughes is just a microcosm of a whole system that will spit out Hollywood’s chaste young virgin girls once they get deflowered. Similarly, Marla’s true love (Alden Ehrenreich from Solo) is used the way most unpaid interns are. Howard Hughes has been a popular subject for Hollywood. Most notably in the 1980 film Melvin and Howard, and the 2004 film The Aviator. He was even alluded to in the Bond film Diamonds are Forever as the billionaire whose identity Blofeld alluded to. In these films, Hughes is depicted as an oddball who is trapped in a prison of his own making. His mental illness is always a clear part of the narrative, which enables the audience to feel a little bit of sympathy towards him. Without fully spoiling the ending, the film nicely finds a way to split the difference between villain and sympathetic character for the agoraphobic billionaire in the final scene.
Public Enemies (2009)-Considering how storied the genre of 30s gangster films is, I really was primed to sink my teeth into what should have been a prime example of what this genre offers. The film is by Michael Mann who is supposed* to possess God-like consistency, and it stars Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, and Johnny Depp. Could a casting director have selected any trio more suited to the period? If he’s not going as a pirate or gothic figurine, the next most likely choice for Depp’s preferred Halloween costume would be pinstripe-decked gangster. Similarly, Marion Cotillard has flapper written all over her. And Christian Bale is solid in whatever box you squeeze him.
The plot tells two parallel stories in the classic fashion of most crime genres: The cat-and-mouse game between a criminal and the man struggling to track him down. The mouse is notorious bank robber (played by Depp) John Dillinger (whose life was insanely interesting), while the cat (Bale) is Melvin Purvis who ran the Chicago office in charge of tracking him down. The character of Purvis isn’t given very much color. He’s mostly an archetype and inaccurate one at that: The real operation was directed by local law authorities until relatively late into Dillinger’s 14-month reign of terror. The script needed a composite character and, as previously mentioned, a broody Christian Bale in a crime movie gets the job done. However, this side of the story, while somewhat of a necessity, is mostly mechanical. One suspects that the script didn’t want to give the (even before the era of cancel culture) morally irksome J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Cudrup) a bigger role as the hero. It’s a shame though, because this is just burying the lead.
Dillinger isn’t necessarily given the hero treatment either. He’s portrayed as somewhat of a feral beast: Instinctually driven to protect his comrades and lovers. He’s also exceptionally clever which is what makes the action scenes so fun. His famous prison escape scene with a decoy gun, whittled from wood, is played with the kind of claustrophobic tenor from an expert craftsman behind the camera. This is the rare film where I can even pick out the soundscape (the rat-tat-tat of the machine guns, especially) well enough to feel like it should have received a Best Sound nomination at the Oscars (I normally have a weak ear for that).
At the end of the day, the technical construction of the movie is solid but it doesn’t amount to enough “wow” moments to make the whole exercise feel more than typical.
