Wow: If ever a motion picture collided with its own history and the times we live, it’s “Public Enemies.”

Just this past week the courts convicted Bernie Madoff to 150 years in prison for one of the biggest Ponzi scams in history. Look at how many distrust our banking system (myself included), now needing to be bailed out with our own tax dollars while we individuals trying to stay above water get no bailout whatsoever. There is not much in the way of sympathy when it comes to banks right now, nor was there any during the Great Depression.

Director (and co-screenwriter) Michael Mann is no stranger when it comes to action and drama. He has directed a number of those, such as 2006’s “Miami Vice” (2006) “Collateral,” (2004) “The Insider” (1999) and “Heat” (1995).

If you’re familiar with Mann’s work, you know he is a stickler for detail and “Public Enemies” is no exception. It’s based on the Bryan Burrough book “Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34,” and Mann goes out of his way to make sure that “Public Enemies” is historically accurate.

Johnny Depp plays the larger-than-life bank robber John Dillinger, and the director makes it a point to shoot not just on location, where many of the gun battles actually took place, but even spends time and money restoring places where Dillinger actually hung out. From the farmlands of Wisconsin to the metropolis of Chicago, Mann rarely shot anything on a soundstage.

It also made Depp’s character that much real and accurate. And when you consider FBI agents gunned down Dillinger on a hot July night shortly after he was watching himself in a movie, the parallels are uncanny. You’ll find yourself looking in both directions to see if maybe Dillinger is seated beside you.

Even though technically the movie boats a cast of other public enemies (including Channing Tatum as Pretty Boy Floyd and Stephen Graham as Baby Face Nelson) the crux of the film centers on Dillinger (Depp) and the FBI’s golden boy, Melvin Purvis, (“Batman” star Christian Bale).

During the Great Depression Dillinger was a folk hero, robbing the corporate entities (banks and the businesses they represented) but not stealing from the little guy (farmers, individuals), thus giving him a Robin Hood persona that Depp captures very convincingly. The law couldn’t keep him in jail very long, either, as Dillinger always found a way to break out to return to his sweetie, Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard, who won the Best Actress Oscar for “La Vie en Rose” last year).

To combat the bad guys (including Public Enemy No. 1 Dillinger) the new FBI and its leader, J. Edgar Hoover (a haunting Billy Crudup), did just about everything they could, both legal and illegal to get their man. Bale is exemplary here playing the confident G-man Purvis, who knows he is being embarrassed in the press every time Dillinger outwits him. It’s ironic too that the only way he can catch him is by sinking to his adversary’s level. Is it a righteous kill? Depends who side you’re on.

“Public Enemies” is rated R for gangster violence and some language, with a running time of 145 minutes.