I’ve made no secret of the fact that Michael Mann’s upcoming gangster film Public Enemies is one of the films I’m most looking forward to. I even bought the book last week to try to read it before the movie comes out.

Michael Mann is a great filmmaker and he normally makes really good choices. Public Enemies is set during the crime wave of 1933-34 when the government’s attempts to stop Depression era criminal legends such as John Dillilnger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd transformed J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI into the country’s first federal police force. Mann authored the script as well, based on the 2004 novel by Bryan Burrough.

The film is being headlined by Johnny Depp who will be playing Dillinger and Christian Bale who is playing Melvin Purvis, the legendary FBI agent who led the manhunt for John Dillinger in the early ’30s. It will also star Best Actress Oscar winner Marion Cotillard as well as Channing Tatum, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Dorff.

How then, to explain the casting of Leelee Sobieski as one of John Dillinger’s last girlfriends? Variety is reporting that Mann actually cast the once up and coming actress in the film. Why would you sully such a great cast by adding Leelee Sobieski? Have they not seen the work she’s done? I mean, I realize it’s been years since she’s actually done anything that anyone would have seen, but still…surely they can remember what it was like when she used to appear in movies and everyone would wonder why?

I can only assume that her character dies a horrible bloody death at the end of a tommy gun in this film or Michael Mann had a momentary lapse of judgment brought on by the excessive use of alcohol. I’m hoping it’s the former.