John Michael Bolger's portrayal of dirty cop Martin Zarkovich in PUBLIC ENEMIES was stellar! A fabulous turn in a smaller role directed by Michael Mann.
Critic Michael Lally spotlights John Michael Bolger in his blog Lally's Alley, I've exerpted his review of Bolger below.
"I'd like to just mention three undersung film actors who don't work nearly
enough, and all of whom I consider friends even though I haven't seen most of
them in years.James Russo—who blew me away the first time I saw him act (before I met him) in the debut run of the stage play EXTREMITIES—has an almost wordless part at the beginning of PUBLIC ENEMIES as an older convict who helps in a breakout but is shot and literally slips away from the other escapees.Don Harvey's another terrific stage actor who I did a small film with a long time
ago and who I first noticed as an actor before I met him in the film CASUALTIES
OF WAR. In PUBLIC ENEMIES he has only one small scene with Depp and Cottilard as an anonymous customer trying to get his coat at a nightclub hatcheck stand. But he plays it totally realistically.And John Michael Bolger, an actor I've known well for years. He has a relatively big part in PUBLIC ENEMIES, in terms of all the character actors. He plays a crooked Chicago detective who persuades "the woman in red"—as we knew her as kids from the legend we grew up with—to give Dillinger up to the cops in the famous scene at the Biograph. Only in PUBLIC ENEMIES she's the woman in orange and white. Bolger plays his scenes so authentically you wish he had a bigger part.
Man, a gangster flick with those three actors in the leads—Russo, Harvey and Bolger—now that I'd pay some money to see. As it is, I had to be satisfied with watching a too-long attempt to
recreate a 'thirties gangster flick without a 'thirties feel for the times and the movies of those times."JohnMichaelBolger.com thanks Mr. Lally for his kind permission to repost a portion of his review.
PUBLIC ENEMIES photo credit: Universal Studio
