"Public Enemies" is a bit like an introductory college course, "Dillinger 101," taught by a campus favorite who cannot cover all the material in a single semester or (here) movie, even one 140 minutes long.

It's stylish, divinely attentive to detail, and yet breezes through too much material too quickly, like a road trip where you can get out of the car at national monuments but not linger or visit the gift shop.

"Public Enemies," directed and co-written by Michael Mann, stars Johnny Depp as John Dillinger and Christian Bale as FBI agent Melvin Purvis, and it's 50 minutes before they first stare at one another through jailhouse bars.

In a nice bit of physical business, John Dillinger is slouching, appearing shorter and less powerful than his adversary. He then straightens his back and goes toe to toe, eye to eye with Purvis and, hearing he is being moved, cracks, "Why, I have absolutely nothing I want to do in Indiana."

The all-too abbreviated exchange is reminiscent of the single delicious sit-down in a restaurant between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Mann's "Heat." The nature of the new movie keeps the pair -- "public enemy No. 1" and the G-man charged with tracking him down -- apart for most of the story.

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'Public Enemies'

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

• Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard.
• Rating: R for gangster violence and some language.
• Web site: www.publicenemies.net

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"Public Enemies" is based on the book of the same name by Bryan Burrough examining the two-year battle between a young J. Edgar Hoover and a half-dozen criminals or gangs, from Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly to Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd and the Barkers.

Mann and co-writers Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman take a 14-month slice of this pie, concentrate on the Dillinger material (although Pretty Boy and Baby Face make appearances) and set to work showing how the fates of three men -- Dillinger, Purvis and Hoover -- on both sides of the law collide in the early 1930s.

Dillinger was the famously polite and efficient bank robber -- nimbly vaulting over ledges, leading a manager to the safe and getting out with the cash in 1 minute 40 seconds flat, while Purvis was a South Carolina lawyer turned FBI agent and Hoover (a round-faced Billy Crudup) an administrator who fired off memos, not guns.

For a while, Dillinger seems unstoppable and untouchable, whether trying to break out of jail or woo a lovely hat check girl named Billie Frechett (Oscar winner Marion Cotillard from "La Vie en Rose") whose French-American-Indian background doesn't make her exotic as it would today but an outsider.

We follow the courtship, capture and the final chapter, outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago where the gangster picture "Manhattan Melodrama" proved no match for the real-life drama unfolding.

Mann shows why it's called "gunfire" as we see the white flames from the Thompson submachine guns and other weapons in one protracted, noisy nighttime shootout. Purvis wasn't afraid to wield a weapon but he knew that modern tools and investigative techniques could help flush out desperados, too.

"Public Enemies" allows Depp to turn on Dillinger's charm, whether draping a coat around a female bank hostage or propping his arm on the shoulder of Indiana prosecutor Robert Estill, a move documented in a famous photograph and re-created here.

Dillinger was a celebrity criminal who was a magnet for photographers and strangers alike who lined streets in the rain to try to catch a glimpse of the prisoner in the back of the car. It's easy to root for Dillinger, a wisecracking Indiana farm boy when played by Depp.

Purvis is described in Burrough's book as standing 5-feet-7 "with delicate facial bones and a high, reedy voice," so youthful he could pass for a teenager. Hoover teased Purvis about a newspaper's description of him that made him sound like the "Clark Gable of the service."

Bale plays him like a straight arrow and Southern gentleman and the movie tells us what happened to Purvis, but not why.

The source book suggests a jealous and possibly infatuated Hoover "never forgave Purvis for his hubris in the wake of the Dillinger and Floyd cases," and blocked his chance for a federal judgeship and did everything to destroy his onetime protege's legacy.

"Public Enemies," which fills supporting roles with well-known actors such as Stephen Dorff, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi and Lili Taylor, throws names and people at us like an automatic pitching machine.

Even set to a slow speed, it can be a lot to sort out, making the war on crime a war on time -- too much here, too little there, before the inevitable blood is spilled. Then soaked up by men and women with handkerchiefs, hankering for sordid souvenirs.