A full 15 people (led by Avy Kaufman and Bonnie Timmerman) are credited with casting work on the film, and every face that appears on screen, whether members of Purvis' grizzled Chicago squad or youthful G-men, are clearly hand-picked for individuality and impact.
Mann's attention to nominally small things, his insistence that every detail be authentic, including the clothes (Colleen Atwood is the costume designer) and the often historic locations (Nathan Crowley is production designer), lend a sense of rightness to the entire endeavor.
Just as potent, as always with Mann, is the eclectic musical landscape, which here includes, in addition to Elliot Goldenthal's score, Billie Holiday doing "Am I Blue," Diana Krall singing "Bye Bye Blackbird," blues by Blind Willie Johnson and Otis Taylor, and the Smithsonian Folkways recording of "Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah" sung by a group of Old Regular Baptists. Not your ordinary tunes.
One of the interesting side effects of this exceptional care is to make "Public Enemies" so real it seems to transcend its period and exist out of time. Though the Depression was a major factor in Dillinger's career, we don't see or feel it all that much. What we get instead is the sense of a man whose name has lasted until now for a reason and, if the movies have anything to say about it, will last longer still.
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kenneth.turan@latimes.com
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'Public Enemies'
MPAA rating: R for gangster violence and some language
Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Playing: In general release
