Starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and Channing Tatum. Rated 14A.

Johnny Depp gives bank robber John Dillinger bad-boy cool in Public Enemies, where everybody bleeds and nobody sweats.

In Public Enemies, Johnny Depp plays Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger with a killer dose of rock-star cool. Miles away from the greasy menace oozed by Warren Oates in 1973’s Dillinger, this is a gangster flick made for the age of Twitter. Sure, Depp’s floppy-haired Dillinger is number one on the FBI’s most-wanted list, but that doesn’t stop him from pursuing hatcheck girl Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) like a bad-boy celebrity on probation. When Billie protests that she doesn’t know enough about him, he quips: “I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars, and you. What else do you need to know?”

Director Michael Mann doesn’t give us a lot more to go on in terms of character development. Much of what defines the sketchy story skitters across a dapper surface: from squealing tires to the flash of Tommy guns sputtering in the dark. Thanks to the way Mann sets things up, you don’t have to know anything about one of the most notorious manhunts in gangland history to predict that there’s a bullet with Dillinger’s name on it. We know FBI hotshot Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) will stop at nothing to bring his man in. And part of the pleasure—at least traditionally—is watching the bad guy start to lose his cool as his fate is sealed.

Ironically, it’s our tightly wound G-man who threatens to become unglued. Not that we’re treated to a great deal of emotion. This is the kind of movie where a lot of people bleed but nobody really sweats. Personally, I thought the lead characters could have used a good dose of old-school heat. But if Depp’s low-key approach robs Public Enemies of some potentially juicy melodrama, one thing is for sure: his character leaves one hell of a good-looking corpse.