Public Enemies

Video
1996
R
1h 35m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Eric Roberts, Theresa Russell, and James Marsden in Public Enemies (1996)

Glorified, glamorized fact-based tale of Ma Barker and her boys, who robbed banks and generally terrorized the Midwest in the 1930s and were eventually gunned down by G-man Melvin Purvis.Glorified, glamorized fact-based tale of Ma Barker and her boys, who robbed banks and generally terrorized the Midwest in the 1930s and were eventually gunned down by G-man Melvin Purvis.Glorified, glamorized fact-based tale of Ma Barker and her boys, who robbed banks and generally terrorized the Midwest in the 1930s and were eventually gunned down by G-man Melvin Purvis.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

4.5/10

1.3K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

User reviews18

Featured review

3/10

Tremendous wast of talent.

It's too kind to call this a "fictionalized" account of the Barker gang. They got the names right, but that's about it.

Russell is still hot, I'll grant you that, but this is not the real Ma Barker, who basically took care of the boys by cooking and assisting when they moved around the country, not by planning or participating in the crimes. I think it would have been far more interesting to present the real story of a middle-aged woman caught up in the criminal activities of her children and their cronies.

I also have to agree with those reviewers who found the shoot-out scenes to be totally unbelievable. The Barker/Karpis victims were a combination of the innocent and of the law-enforcement agents who pursued them, but they definitely did not mow down half-a-dozen FBI agents every time they were cornered. (On the other hand, as several recent books have related, the FBI of that era emphasized the idea of agents coming only from legal or accounting backgrounds to the extent that many agents had very little law enforcement or firearms experience. They were not the well-trained agents that we picture today.)

But the worst sin of all is that the movie is basically a bore. Nobody changes, nobody grows. We know the end of the road is ahead, we just don't know which shoot-out it will be.

Only for die-hard Russell fans.

innocuous
Apr 7, 2006
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Trivia
On two different occasions, the film utilizes stock footage of exteriors for establishing shots. The first: When Arthur Dunlop (Eric Roberts) is drinking in the bar and spills info on the kidnapping, the exterior shows it to be the "Pitty Pat Club" which was featured in the movie "Harlem Nights". Second: When Melvin Purvis finds Arthur "Dock" Barker (James Marsden) and arrests him, the exterior shot shows a street corner building beneath some elevated tracks with a curved corner. This exterior is from "The Untouchables" (1987). It was in the scene where the little girl goes into the saloon before it blows up.

Goofs
The final shootout between Ma Barker and Melvin Purvis is captioned to have occurred in Lake "Wier" when in fact the location is near Lake Weir.

Quotes
Kate "Ma" Barker: You said, "Dead by Christmas." Is that the kind of chance you're talking about?
Melvin Purvis: You can't believe everything you read in the papers. I'm the F.B.I., not a bounty hunter.
Herman Barker: No difference.

Alternate versions
In the suicide scene, it was originally written that Herman Barker's whole head would explode, but director, Mark L. Lester, decided it was too gory for just one scene, and changed it to the back of his neck exploding instead.