History Film / PublicEnemies

* ChewbaccaDefense:
** Dillinger's shady defense lawyer Louis Piquett manages to keep him out of the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City by saying that Sheriff Lillian Holley is a woman, and therefore afraid that she can't keep him locked up in minimum security, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment because she's a woman]]. "I'm not afraid!" Judge William Murray immediately concludes that means she thinks Dillinger should stay in Crown Point. Because of this, Dillinger is able to carve the wooden pistol and escape with ease.
** It's worth noting that the exchange between Dillinger's lawyer and Sheriff Lillian Holley is [[TruthInTelevision mostly verbatim of the real court transcript]] (although for comparison some of the dialogue in the transcripts was omitted, like Piquett objecting to the presence of men armed with submachine guns in the courtroom after petitioning for Dillinger's shackles to be removed). Of course, whether Dillinger really carved the wooden pistol himself or had it smuggled in is unknown. Some say that Louis Piquett or Art O'Leary smuggled it into the prison instead. It could even have been Martin Zarkovich who smuggled the wooden gun in, evidenced by the fact that he visited Dillinger at least once. (On a side note, a few people, like Matt Leach, allege that Zarkovich had been responsible for sheltering Dillinger at times (he was never charged, given he was a participant in Dillinger's death).

* AnachronismStew:
** Some of the music featured is actually from the late 30s, such as swing music. And a Billie Holliday record is heard in one scene (Holliday would begin her career in 1935)
** At one theater, we see a ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon playing, featuring Porky Pig, who didn't appear until 1935 (although considering that at the time of the film's setting, the studio's "star" was the long-forgotten Buddy...).

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Though the film is arguably one of the more accurate adaptations of this period, it still takes some liberties (as noted below).

* AluminumChristmasTrees: During one bank robbery, Dillinger, having noticed a customer put his cash on the counter, tells him "Put it away. I'm not here for your money, I'm here for the bank's money." While it makes a nice ShoutOut to ''Film/{{Heat}}'' (also produced by Creator/MichaelMann), John Dillinger is reported to have said that to a customer while robbing a bank in Greencastle, Indiana.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: During one bank robbery, Dillinger, having noticed a customer put his cash on the counter, tells him "Put it away. I'm not here for your money, I'm here for the bank's money." While it makes a nice ShoutOut to ''Film'{{Heat}}'' (also produced by Creator/MichaelMann), John Dillinger is reported to have said that to a customer while robbing a bank in Greencastle, Indiana.

* AlasPoorVillain: [[spoiler:Dillinger himself at the end]].

* DeadpanSnarker: Two films were playing the night Dillinger was killed: "Manhattan Melodrama", and a Shirley Temple movie. One of the agents remarks: "Dillinger ain't goin' to no Shirley Temple picture."

* BlackAndGreyMorality: Dillinger and his gang are criminals. J. Edgar Hoover is, well, J. Edgar Hoover (tough as nails), and some of his men are violently thuggish - especially Harold Reinecke.

* FamousLastWords: The real Dillinger's last whispers are unknown. At the end of the film, [[spoiler:he whispers, "Tell Billie for me, 'Bye, bye, blackbird'." after being shot down by Winstead]].

* AdaptationDistillation: Burrough's book profiles Dillinger alongside a number of other criminals, as mentioned above: while he receives a lot of attention, he's not especially prominent in the story line compared to the other figures. With the movie focusing on Dillinger (and Purvis, to a lesser extent), most of them are either excluded entirely (Bonnie and Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly, the Barkers) or DemotedToExtra (Floyd, Karpis, Nelson). The movie also makes no reference to the Kansas City Massacre, which is the central event in the FBI's rise to prominence.

** The Feds were actually ''worse'' in reality than they were in the movie, while Purvis himself was perhaps a bit ''better'' here than he was in real life. In this film, Purvis shoots down Nelson, Floyd, and Van Meter, when in reality, the former two were killed in shootings that happened without Purvis present[[note]]In Floyd's case, Purvis was present but wasn't one of those who shot him[[/note]], and Van Meter was killed by St. Paul police.[[note]]The account that Mann seems to use for Floyd's death is the FBI account, which states that Floyd was shot by a sniper from a great distance (although the real shooting happened on an open field, not in an apple orchard). Here, the film gives that role to Purvis. The film also uses the real Purvis's claim that he kicked a pistol out of Floyd's hand.[[/note]]
** While Dillinger did orchestrate the September 26, 1933 breakout of his future accomplices from the Indiana State Penitentiary, he did not participate in the breakout as he was in jail in Lima, Ohio awaiting trial for a bank robbery in Bluffton, Ohio. Dillinger also wasn't a household name at the time, only becoming this after he was broken out.

** Purvis and his men are pursuing Dillinger in the first half of the film. During the fall of 1933, the FBI had no involvement in the Dillinger manhunt. The most they did was attend a number of conferences and offer to help in fingerprinting; following the death of Lima, Ohio's sheriff during the liberation of Dillinger from that jail, Hoover actually ignored pleas from Indiana Governor Paul [=McNutt=] for the FBI's help. So in this time period, responsibility for pursuing the Dillinger gang fell to the Indiana State Police.

*** Dillinger gets shot in the shoulder, which actually happened a week after the Sioux Falls robbery, when the gang robbed the First National Bank in Mason City, Iowa. Also taken from the actual Mason City robbery is the gang getting less than they were expecting. When told about the job by Tommy Carroll, Dillinger is told that the bank they'll hit may net them six figures. In the real Sioux Falls robbery, the gang only netted $46,000 (which is how much they count in the film). Them expecting more money than they really got went to the Mason City robbery - they knew there was about $250,000 in that bank's vault, but they netted only about 1/5th of that much as a result of Hamilton being stalled by an intelligent bank manager.
*** During the shootout, a bit happens where a boy jumps on Nelson's back and struggles with him for a few moments before Nelson throws him backwards into a storefront window. Such an incident did happen with Nelson, but it was actually during the gang's robbery of the Merchants National Bank in South Bend, Indiana on June 30, 1934.

*** In his real shootout on November 27, 1934 in Barrington, Illinois against Agents Samuel P. Cowley and Herman Hollis (both of whom were mortally wounded), Nelson refused to fall despite having been struck a total of seventeen times (Hollis shot him ten times in his legs with a shotgun, and Cowley shot him seven times with a submachine gun). This is attributed to adrenaline surging through his body - which kept Nelson alive for approximately three hours before he succumbed to his wounds. And the bullets that felled Cowley and Hollis were fired after Nelson had been really shot up.

''Public Enemies'' is a 2009 crime drama directed by Creator/MichaelMann and starring Creator/JohnnyDepp as infamous criminal John Dillinger, who robbed numerous banks during TheThirties and was pursued by Special Agent Melvin Purvis (Creator/ChristianBale).

*** More problematic is that John "Red" Hamilton is shown out of jail and helps Dillinger with the TrojanPrisoner breakout. Hamilton was actually one of the inmates who escaped - and the only one of them who never got recaptured before his death in April of 1934.
*** The real breakout did not have any of the bloodshed shown in the movie. There were no fatalities.
** Billie Frechette's arrest is shown happening after the shootout at Little Bohemia Lodge. In reality it was the opposite. Part of the reason the Dillinger gang went to Little Bohemia was in part to allow Dillinger to take his mind off Billie.
** Little Bohemia is shown as being used by the gang as a hideout after a disastrous bank robbery in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The two events actually happened about a month and a half apart, and the movie completely skips over the things that happened in the interim: a bank robbery in Mason City, Iowa; Dillinger, Billie and Van Meter's narrow escape after a shootout with police in St. Paul; and a visit to Hamilton's sister Anna Steve a few days before Little Bohemia.
** Purvis and his men are pursuing Dillinger in the first half of the film. In reality, the most the FBI did insofar as get involved in the Dillinger manhunt was attend a number of conferences and offer to help in fingerprinting; following the death of Lima, Ohio's sheriff during the liberation of Dillinger from that jail, Hoover actually ignored pleas from Indiana Governor Paul [=McNutt=] for the FBI's help. So in this time period, responsibility for pursuing the Dillinger gang fell to the Indiana State Police.

** A botched attempt to arrest a criminal happens at the Sherone Apartments building. In the film, the criminal who escapes is Baby Face Nelson with Tommy Carroll. This never happened with Nelson in real life. However, a bungled FBI attempt to capture Verne Miller, who was wanted as one of the suspected conspirators in the Kansas City Massacre in June 1933, happened at this apartment building on November 1, 1933.

*** During the shootout, a bit happens where a boy jumps on Nelson's back and struggles with him for a few moments before Nelson throws him off, shattering a window. Such an incident did happen with Nelson, but it was actually during the gang's robbery of the Merchants National Bank in South Bend, Indiana on June 30, 1934.
** George "Baby Face" Nelson is depicted as LargeAndInCharge, common in depictions of him. He was actually TheNapoleon, hence his nickname (which he personally hated), given by the wife of the mayor of Chicago (who he kidnapped) due to his short stature and youthful looks. He also died at age 25.

Compare the 1973 film ''Film/{{Dillinger}}'' or the 1945 film also called ''Film/{{Dillinger|1945}}'', both of which have a far darker take on the notorious gangster.

* TooDumbToLive: Many of Purvis's men, literally: Barton, the agent killed in the botched apartment raid, and then later Baum at Little Bohemia.

* TriggerHappy: [[BerserkButton Baby-Face]] Nelson. He was like this in real life too. For example, in the Sioux Falls robbery, both in the movie and in real life, Nelson, upon seeing a motorcycle cop named Hale Keith pulling up alongside the bank, leaped onto a low railing and let loose a deafening burst of gunfire through a plate glass window that severely wounded Officer Keith (struck four times in the chest), then screamed "I got one!" (then in the film, he cackles and fires another deafening burst into the ceiling, and bits of plaster rain down).

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Compare 1973 film ''Film/{{Dillinger}}'' or 1945 film ''Film/{{Dillinger|1945}}'', both of which have a far darker take on the notorious gangster.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: This version of Dillinger has several bodies that can be attributed to him: two Racine cops and a Sioux Falls cop. In reality, Dillinger planned his robberies around ''not'' killing people. It's believed the only time Dillinger killed someone was on January 15, 1934 during a bank robbery in East Chicago, Indiana, when he killed a police officer named William O'Malley (it was this murder that Dillinger was awaiting trial for when he broke out of Crown Point), and even then, whether Dillinger was the one who shot O'Malley or not has sometimes been called into question. While in several of Dillinger's bank robberies, people did get shot, the person who shot them was typically Nelson or Van Meter.

* AffablyEvil: Dillinger is handsome, charming, and won't hesitate to smash your face against a hard surface if you stand between him and something he wants, like Billie Frechette.

* OneSceneWonder: James Russo as Walter Dietrich, whose killed in the opening scene but whose brief appearance leaves quite an impression.
** ChanningTatum as Pretty Boy Floyd, if only for the sake that it's Channing Tatum and that he finishes his brief appearance by getting killed off in a rather gruesome way.

* VillainProtagonist: John Dillinger

* WellSeeAboutThat: Dillinger says this to Purvis after being taunted that he'll never leave his jail cell until being removed for his execution in the electric chair. Though Purvis and Dillinger never actually spoke to each other, Dillinger did have multiple in-prison encounters with his original pursuer - Indiana State Police detective Matt Leach, who was somewhat more competent than the FBI in pursuing Dillinger.

** Floyd, rather than being killed by Purvis with a sniper rifle, was fatally injured by a volley of gunfire from a posse consisting of both FBI agents and local police. Floyd was also allegedly shot by Purvis or one of his agents after being disarmed, though this is a more controversial account given by a local police officer, which was disputed by other witnesses.

** Floyd, too, was allegedly shot after being disarmed, though this is a more controversial account given by a local police officer. The Feds were actually ''worse'' in reality than they were in the movie, while Purvis himself was perhaps a bit ''better'' here than he was in real life. In this film, Purvis shoots down Nelson, Floyd, and Van Meter, when in reality, the former two were killed in shootings that happened without Purvis present[[note]]In Floyd's case, Purvis was present but wasn't one of those who shot him[[/note]], and Van Meter was killed by St. Paul police.[[note]]The account that Mann seems to use for Floyd's death is the FBI account, which states that Floyd was shot by a sniper from a great distance (although the real shooting happened on an open field, not in an apple orchard). Here, the film gives that role to Purvis. The film also uses the real Purvis's claim that he kicked a pistol out of Floyd's hand.[[/note]]

Compare 1973 film ''Film/{{Dillinger}}'' or 1945 film ''Film/{{Dillinger}}'', both of which have a far darker take on the notorious gangster.

Compare 1973 film ''Film/{{Dillinger}}''.

After Dillinger breaks a group of allies out of Indiana's state penitentiary, the recently-established FBI, headed by J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup), begins working on a case to take him down for good. Hungry for publicity in order to win over skeptical voices in Congress, Hoover assigns Purvis (Bale) to track down Dillinger. Meanwhile, Dillinger takes time out of his busy schedule to romance a hatcheck girl named Billie Frechette (Creator/MarionCotillard).

** Matt Craven as FBI Agent Gerry Campbell.

* TheCameo: As is common in MichaelMann films, they're are plenty of recognizable faces popping up in minor or supporting roles that sometimes last little more than seconds.
** CareyMulligan as a prostitute.
** ChanningTatum as bank robber Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd moments before he's shot and killed.

** GiovanniRibisi as Dillinger's contact Alvin Karpis.
** LiliTaylor as Sheriff Lillian Holley, Dillinger's jailer.
** LeeleeSobieski as Polly, the waitress whom accompanies Dillinger to the Biograph theater.

* AdaptationDistillation: Burrough's book profiles Dillinger alongside a number of other criminals, as mentioned above: while he receives a lot of attention, he's not especially prominent in the story line compared to the other figures. With the movie focusing on Dillinger (and Purvis, to a lesser extent), most of them are either excluded entirely (Bonnie and Clyde, Machine Gun Kelly, the Barkers) or DemotedToExtra (Floyd, Karpis, Nelson). In particular, the movie makes no reference to the Kansas City Massacre which is the central event in the FBI's promotion