Blissfully, I missed Michael Mann’s Public Enemies the first time around. I wished I’d missed it the second as well. But with Oscar screenings abounding, this one was trotted out again.

It’s a mess.

Which is unusual. Normally I really love and look forward to every Michael Mann movie. Usually you can count on excellent cinematography. Neither is true here.

The main problem of the narrative is that there are really three protagonists (in the sense of whose story are you following), and all three are dislikeable. All three are essentially bad men. One is John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), the notorious criminal. Next is the man hunting our “Public Enemy No. 1,” Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). The third is J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup).

Dillinger, while charismatic and personable, is a killer and a gangster who robs banks. Purvis pushes his men to inhumane methods in the interest of trapping this one man. The mastermind behind the entire propaganda, Hoover, is seen here laying the seeds for the FBI corruption and disregard of rules to come. So, run this by me one more time: who are we supposed to be rooting for here?

Personally, I’m sick to death of revenge movies. Someone does something bad, someone else spends the entire movie trying to “get him.” Yawn. I also despise shoot ’em ups. So this movie really bored me to tears. If I wasn’t with someone, I would’ve walked out on this one midway through. There is just no point to it.

That said, I will say, there is one scene: where the hunted criminal Dillinger strolls into the “Dillinger division” of the Chicago Police Department, and peruses their bulletin boards. They don’t recognize him at all. It was quite powerful. The rest of the movie? Not so much.