Again, would’ve posted this after 1938, but it’s still going to be a while, so might as well do it now:
Public Enemies (2010)
Written and Directed by Michael Mann
1923 Indiana: Troubled 21-year old John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) has been sentenced for one year in the Indiana Reformatory for a desperate robbery of a grocery shop with a friend. He undergoes a painful treatment for gonorrhea, which leaves him bitter and angry. When he starts to associate with criminals, his cellmate, Marcus (Sterling K. Brown) grows concerned. He gives Dillinger a copy of Vladmir Lenin’s “State and Revolution”. While dismissive of “Bolshie propaganda”, he agrees to give it a chance on Marcus’ request.
11 years later, Dillinger, now an agent for Section 9 of the Secretariat of Public Safety, waits with a small posse of fellow agents, as well as Indiana Red Guardsmen near a hotel in South Bend. He spots his target, George “Machine Gun” Kelly Barnes (Dan Folger), wanted for multiple robberies and kidnapping across Republic lines, entering with his own group of accomplices including his wife Katryn (Jessica Chastain) and Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham). Dillinger and the agents, armed with their own Thompson machine gun, head to Kelly’s room to arrest him. However, Kelly and his accomplices proceed to resist arrest, firing back with their own weapons. Dillinger evades the gunfire as many of the agents (former G-Men among them) and Guardsmen are killed or injured. He manages to kill Kelly as he tries to escape the hotel out on the street. However, the resulting bloodbath is an embarrassment for the newly formed agency. Its head, J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) is castigated by Attorney General Crystal Eastman (Felicity Huffman) over the incident. Eastman tells Hoover that they shouldn’t be chasing “minor criminals and bank robbers”, but focus on the increasing threat of counter-revolution. Dillinger ( a veteran of the 20’s battles with the KKK) agrees, and despite his failure, Hoover appoints him as head of a secret infiltration division to route out counter revolutionary organizations.
Two years later, Al Capone (Jon Bernthal) and some associates (including members of the Illinois Sons of the Liberty) stage a robbery of the Chicago Union Bank. Out to stop them are Sec9 agents Melvin Purvis (Adam Sandler), a former G-Man, and Charles Floyd (Channing Tatum), with members of the Chicago Milita as back-up. While Floyd apprehends Capone’s right-hand man Frank Nitti (Bill Camp), Purvis successfully corners Capone in the vault. However, Capone makes one final attempt at escape, prompting the militia members to gun him down.
Hoover is impressed by Purvis’ capture, and assigns him into Dillinger’s unit. Their current target: The Sons of the Confederacy, a merger of the Southern Sons of Liberty and the Ku Klux Klan. Their leader is vicious, staunchly racist Imperial Wizard John Rankin (Walton Goggins). Their goal is to cause rifts that would tear the organization apart, and eventually bring down Rankin himself.
Dillinger and Purvis head to Rankin’s last known location in Birmingham, Alabama. They pose as the “Strainer Brothers”, a pair of day-laborers who are interested in joining the Sons.
The two are given papers that affirm they are of “pure Aryan blood”, and they sign an oath, affirming “a committment to the ideal of the Confederate State of America that the Negro is inherently inferior to the white man,” and to “reject Judeo-Bolshevikism in its many manifestations.
Purvis, a native of South Carolina, guides devout Party man Dillinger in proper Southern mannerisms before they attend their first meeting of the “Alabama Southern Daughters Society,” a front for the Sons where new members are initiated.
While Rankin isn’t there, Imperial Klonsul Herman Talmadge (Stephen Dorff) and Imperial Klazik Harry Byrd (Jim Parsons) are, in case the “Pubs” show up. Dillinger learns that he defends any member of the Sons that is caught in the midst of an attack (as a member of “Liberty Defense”) and to “route out any government traitors”, recalling that two other agents were murdered and left in a ditch after they were found out.
Figuring Talmadge is their opportunity to get information on Rankin, Dillinger attempts to stage an attack on a local African farming commune to lure out Talmadge. However, the attack ends with the two new recruits he had tricked killed, and himself injured and arrested, along with Purvis who tried to stop him. The two have a brief encounter with a miner South Carolina lawyer named Strom Thurmond (Striker*) before they are bailed out by Hoover.
Finding a different way to get to Talmadge, Purvis learns that Talmadge can’t technically practice law because he was only a recent graduate and didn’t have a license. Also, “Liberty Defense” is also a Sons front, that can’t legally operate.
Purvis uses this pretext to arrest Talmadge and interrogate him. However, he tries to resist, using a gaggle of Sons to fight back. Luckily, Dillinger manages to subdue him and bring him in forcefully.
After a long interrogation, Talmadge eventually confesses that he hadn’t seen Rankin in over a year, but heard he had moved his operations to Atlanta. Talmadge is coerced into becoming an informant.
Talmadge requests a meeting with Rankin in advance of an upcoming conference. While Rankin declines to meet, Klaliff Howard W. Smith (Alec Baldwin) agrees to convey information about Rankin’s planned speech, calling for the “Invisible Empire” to launch a series of attacks to restore the “reign of Anglo-Saxon Christianity”. Smith notes that some, including himself, think it’s a horrible idea, and advocate a leave to Cuba.
The head of the Atlanta African Red Guard, “Sheriff” Joe Brutus (Louis Gossett, Jr.) feels they should use the information about the conference to make immediate arrests. However, Dillinger feels that the organization would be fatally weakened if a split occurred. To compromise, while Purvis and Brutus take down other Klan officials (some ending in shootouts) to weaken the org in preparation for the split, Dillinger ferments the split by spreading it among the branch representatives visiting for the conference.
Rankin becomes paranoid because of the growing discontent and the arrests. He learns that Talmadge had been arrested in Alabama. Suspecting he had turned informant, Rankin has Talmadge killed by shooting him in the head.
At the conference, after Rankin’s “Invisible Empire” speech, a group of partisans announces that they will defect to Cuba effective immediately. Denounced as traitors and cowards, a fight breaks out, and the conference descends into chaos. While Smith and others flee to the Georgia coast to catch a boat to Havana , Brutus uses the attendees list to arrest multiple branch reps and most of the “Georgia Sons of the Confederacy.”
Dillinger and Purvis are congratulated. However, despite Rankin still being at large, Purvis is “promoted” to a task force hunting Nazi spies on the East Coast, removing him from the operation.
By 1938, the Sons of the Confederacy has been decimated, with its high ranking officials arrested or turned informant. Rankin remains at large, however. Ultimately, he is tracked to near his hometown of Tupelo. Brutus (now promoted to the Public Safety units) and Dilinger prepare for an arrest as Rankin sits in a former plantation surrounded by Sons.
After a long shootout, where Byrd is killed, Dillinger manages to successfully subdues and captures Rankin. In the plantation, there are files connecting the Sons of Liberty to at least ten members of the True Democrats, prompting further scandal that further brings down counterrevolutionaries. *[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation
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