Public Enemy

Author(s): James Somerton (Canada)
Public Enemy

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Eric Roth
Original Score by John Williams

CAST

Mark Ruffalo as Fred Barker
Eric Bana as Alvin Karpis
Shia Labeouf as Lloyd Barker
Kathy Bates as Kate "Ma" Barker
Robert Forster as Arthur Barker
David Wenham as Dr. Joseph Moran
Sam Neil as William Hamm
Philip Seymour Hoffman as J. Edgar Hoover

Tagline: "Myths Die Hard"

SYNOPSIS: Every person in the First National Bank of Chicago is on the floor. The boys from the Barker-Karpis gang were lootin' the place, barely leavin' a penny. Crowds of spectators are outside waiting as the sirens of the police cars burst onto the scene. They storm the bank, ready to take out the infamous gang. One problem; they're not there anymore.

Miles away a car speeds down the road. Alvin Karpis and Fred Barker, and his younger brother Lloyd, watch closely behind them as they near the state line. Once their safely in Indiana they make a sharp turn down a long wooded road that leads to a small cabin. Inside they meet up with Fred and Kate "Ma" Barker, Fred and Lloyd's parents. "Ma" listens to the radio while the boys tell Arthur what went down. She shushes them when she hears their names come out of the little speaker. J. Edgar Hoover himself is after them now. They ain't dealing with state troopers no more. Now they got the FBI to deal with.

The boys take "Ma" and Arthur to a small town called Marion County, Florida. They got another job and "Ma" and Arthur need to be tucked away in case those FBI men come looking for 'em. They fit right nicely in with the neighbors, especially "Ma". She comes across as a sweet ol' lady, but she's keepin' up on what her boys are up to. She's anything but a neglectful mother.

Hoover's keepin' up on them too. He's gettin' real miffed that some gang of wild bank robbers keep gettin' away from him. He's got half the FBI out for 'em now. The last robbery, a bank in Kansas City, left four lawmen dead and thousands of dollars missin'. Then he gets the call. The Barker Boys are at a bank in Ontarioville, Illinois. They got 'em cornered.

Alvin Karpis is shootin' his way out of the bank like he's partin' the red sea. He's got a poor bank clerk by the neck and tosses him in the back seat of the car before rushin' off. Fred and Lloyd Barker are goin' out the back way when cops rush into the buildin'. Lloyd takes two bullets before Fred gets him in the car and they all head south. Keep headin' south, get as far away from Chicago as they can. Poor Lloyd's bleeding to death in the back seat. Make-shift bandages and Fred's constant encouragement ain't helpin' any. They finally get to a safe house in Louisiana and call in a favor from Joseph Moran; part time gang member and full time doctor. Ain't too much he can do for Lloyd now, lost too much blood. A few doses of morphine make his passin' bearable though. Now they got another favor to ask him. They got to look real different. For a price, Moran agrees to make 'em into new people. Or at least try.

"Ma" Barker finds out about Lloyd's death from the radio. Apparently the cops shot him dead in a bank in Illinois. "Ma" might be a strong woman but she ain't taking the news too well. Now Fred and Alvin got a bank clerk held hostage and they're askin' a real big ransom. Should be askin' more. Damn them cops! They took her baby boy.

Hoover's on a real mission now. He ain't lettin' anybody put up that ransom. He's gonna smoke 'em right out of their holes. Alvin Karpis and Fred Barker are in his hands now. They might think they're still one step ahead of him but he's two ahead now. He knows where their "Ma" is and he's sendin' his FBI men out there right now.

Fred and Alvin don't look too different. Maybe a bit uglier but that's about all. Ain't got no finger prints no more though so that'll work for them. Still got that bank clerk held up in a bedroom. They only found out his name from the radio; William Hamm. Ain't no ransom comin' in for him so they're gonna have to get rid of him soon. But they're about to get some real bad news about "Ma" and Arthur. News bad enough to split 'em up, even after all they've been through. Worse still; Hoover and his FBI men are closin' in.

WHAT THE PRESS WOULD SAY

Steven Spielberg's "Public Enemy" is a film that harkens back to the classic mob movies of the 1930's. It's not about the New York mafia or the prohibition mobsters like Al Capone. It's about bank robbers, outlaws, people always on the run. In the midst of the Great Depression crime is the only job that pays, and the boys in the Barker-Karpis gang know this all too well. Lead by Alvin Karpis, the gang speeds around the midwest robbing banks, dodging cops, and making a name for themselves alongside John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde. Always making sure to take good care of "Ma" Barker before heading out on another job. But once J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI get involved, the stakes get a lot higher.

The cast of "Public Enemy" vanish into their rolls. Eric Bana plays the heartless Alvin Karpis, the mastermind behind the gang who could care less about how many dead bodies he leaves in his wake. However, he may be heartless but he certainly isn't dumb. He cleverly plans out ways of escaping the cops and the FBI, although there are a few close calls once the FBI get involved. His best friend, Fred Barker, acts as his conscience in most cases. Mark Ruffalo brings a humanity to the roll that is sometimes very difficult to see. He's just as brutal a killer as Karpis but he thinks about it afterward. He cares deeply for his younger brother, Lloyd, and tries to get him to stay behind with "Ma" at one point. For his protection. Lloyd Barker is played by Shia Labeouf in a performance that cements his abilities as an actor. As the youngest member of the gang, Lloyd gets overexcited at times but always manages to bring it back down. Unlike Alvin and Fred, Lloyd never actually kills anybody, or at least we don't see him kill anyone. He's basically just around for back up. He's a mama's boy who, on his death bed, cries for his mother to come save him. In this heartbreaking scene we take a step back from the shoot outs and the chases, and see exactly what the consequences are. These consequences aren't felt any stronger than by Kate "Ma" Barker herself. Kathy Bates elicits a stunning performance as the legendary crime figure. She's soft and humane in the majority of her scenes, especially in ones where she idly gossips with other women in her hide-out town. This isn't the criminal mastermind of legend; a woman who secretly drove all the plans of the Karpis-Barker gang while safely hidden away. She is fragile, and falls to pieces at the news of her youngest son's death. Her baby boy. But Spielberg reaches back into legend for her climatic scene; a shootout with the FBI. In this brutal scene we see her husband Arthur, played to quiet perfection by Robert Forster, aiming and taking out several members of the FBI team. Only when he lays dead on the floor does "Ma" barker grab the tommy gun and fire back. Her shots have little effect, only wounding one or two FBI men, and she's finally shot in the chest, then dies on the floor next to her husband. Sam Neil and David Wehnam give some great performances as a hostage whose ransom isn't being paid, and an "underground" doctor who performs botched plastic surgeries on Ruffalo and Bana. But Philip Seymour Hoffman steals every scene he's in as the obsessive head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. His Hoover might have fit right in with the gang under different circumstances. He's just as single minded as Karpis and has the backing of the United States government to hunt down every single outlaw that attracts his attention. He's brutally blunt and doesn't react well to any sort of humor by his fellow FBI men. He's on the scene in the end of the movie when Fred Barker is shot down and Alvin Karpis is arrested. He smiles with pride as he watches Barker's corpse get hauled away and his famous line, "In the end, crime just doesn't Pay" gets him a glob of spit in the face from Karpis.

Director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Eric Roth transport us back in time to the 1930's, a time when the Great Depression had crippled the economy and mobsters had just as much power as elected officials, if not more. Years before television, the people got their news from the crackling radios that sat in their living rooms. Duke Ellington and Bing Crosby were the top recording artists of the day and the score borrows heavily from their jazzy sound. We don't get obscene amounts of violence but this is a movie about outlaws after all. The shoot outs may be rare but they're not for the faint of heart. Spielberg wisely keeps these scenes about the people in them, and not about the bloodshed they're causing. He isn't afraid to score a shoot out in a bank, and the car chase that follows it, with up-tempo jazz, orchestrated by the brilliant John Williams. But he knows when to keep things quiet too. There's no score at all for the shoot out with "Ma" and Fred Barker, nor is there for Lloyd Barker's death scene and "Ma"'s reaction afterward. He trusts in his actors enough to let them get the emotion across to you without underscoring it with music. Eric Roth's screenplay does it's part in transporting us back in time. There's a pretty big speech divide between The Barker-Karpis gang members, and the FBI. It becomes clear pretty quickly that the gang members haven't gotten the best education, but they're not idiots either. They may not speak like scholars but they're just as clever as the pompous men in the FBI, if not more so. Spielberg doesn't treat his outlaws like heroes, they're not Robin Hood. Most of them are cold blooded killers with just enough humanity for an audience to grasp on to. Lloyd and "Ma" are the real emotional anchors and they never falter. They never step too far over the line so that we don't sympathize with them anymore. And then Fred's got enough heart in him to carry us through the last few scenes in the film. This isn't your standard mobster movie. It's Steven Spielberg's brilliant tribute to the Golden Age of mobster movies. And his tribute transcends itself and becomes an engaging tale of outlaws, murder, crime, and even humanity. It's a new mobster movie for a new generation that only Steven Spielberg could make.

POSSIBLE NOMINATIONS
Best Picture
Best Director - Steven Spielberg
Best Actor - Eric Bana
Best Supporting Actor - Shia Labeouf
Best Supporting Actress - Kathy Bates
Best Original Screenplay - Eric Roth