Blackhat (2015)

Director: Michael Mann
Writer:    Morgan Davis Foehl
Cast:       Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Wei Tang

A furloughed convict and his American and Chinese partners hunts a high-level cybercrime network from Chicago to Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Jakarta. Michael Mann said he was inspired to make Blackhat after reading about the events surrounding Stuxnet, which was a computer worm that targeted and ruined almost one-fifth's of Iran's nuclear centrifuges. It was designed to attack industrial programmable logic controllers (PLCs).

Chronologically speaking, the last film I have seen of Michael Mann is 'Collateral'. So, despite the bad reviews that Blackhat got, I was not quite prepared to see such a fall in quality from a great director like Mann. I count 'The Insider' as one of my most favorite films of all time and 'Thief', 'Heat' and 'Collateral' were all great. Both Manhunter and Last of the Mohicans were also very good as well and so what I am saying is that I hadn't seen a bad film from Mann before this one. He is most famous for making films that are very realistic in the filming of its set-piece sequences and I guess this one is not different when it comes to the depiction of cyber-crimes. But unlike other protagonists in Mann film, we don't feel one iota of 'Giving a fuck' about the lead character played by Chris Hemsworth. To make matters worse he tries to bring some emotional drama sequences into the whole proceeding and those scenes never failed to bring about some smiles and that is never a good sign. Whatever realism Mann is trying to bring in the central subject matter sits in stark contrast to the laughably bad drama part of it. To top it all you get several action sequences with guns, RPGs and fireworks and the length of just more than two hours is excruciatingly long. I can't really say that he is hamstrung by talent-less actors because the script is so shit that it is not fair to judge them on basis of their work in this film. 

Overall it is a terrible watch and should be avoided even if you are a big fan of Michael Mann. I don't know whether 'Public Enemies' was as shit as this one but it did get better reviews. You cannot really trust those reviews I guess because some of the reviewers might have deluded themselves because of their admiration for the director. Well, Blackhat, just about confirmed that he can really be shitty at times.

Rating: 1.5/5 

                                                                          

Heat (1995)

Director: Michael Mann
Writer:    Michael Mann
Cast:       Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight

A group of professional bank robbers start to feel the heat from police when they unknowingly leave a clue at their latest heist. 

Both Al Pacino and Robert De Niro starred in Godfather 2 where the former played Michael Corleone whereas the latter played the role of his father, Don Vito Corleone, but in an entirely different timeline. This meant that these two actors who were arguably the greatest lead actors from Hollywood never shared screen-time till Michael Mann decided to make 'Heat'. They of course went on to act together in some crap film called 'Righteous Kill' in the noughties, but lets just forget that since they were not really at their best and didn't give a shit about films anymore. The fact that they will be on screen together was of course the selling point for the film which marketed itself as a Pacino-De Niro showdown. Still it happens in only two scenes since Al Pacino is playing a cop and Robert De Niro is the head of the robber crew which the former is trying to bust. The first of those scene is quite contrived but is necessary for the film nevertheless since it is trying to portray a situation where both these characters have huge respect for each other, like in real life I guess. 

The film is about 170 minutes long and it is well utilized to tell a story about complex set of characters with sufficient time given to show their family life. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) is hugely dedicated to his job and that might be the reason for him being in his third marriage. On the other side, all the people from the crew except for their leader Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) have a family. Neil lives a very disciplined life based on the principle: "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." But over the course of the film he develops a relationship with a lonely girl and his inclination towards the well being of his colleagues, Val Kilmer especially, leads him to take some undue risks that could very well cause their downfall. The good thing about the film is that it is not just about their mistakes but also about good police work and lucky breaks for the law establishment. Since the film is from Michael Mann, one would expect great authenticity in the the set-piece scenes involving robbery and action sequences. I am told the bank robbery scene and police confrontation afterwards are the most realistic portrayal of them on screen. 

Michael Mann had the script of the film ready by 1979 and shelved the project after he made 'Thief'. Heat is based on the real life story of Chicago police officer Chuck Adamson and his pursuit in the 1960s of a career criminal named McCauley. In the film we are more sympathetic towards Neil and we want him to escape in spite of the body count that he caused. It might be partly due to the way the characters are played with Al Pacino doing another one of those hammy performance like in 'Scent of a Woman'. The line Because she's got a... GREAT ASS!'' was ad-libbed by Pacino and the look on Hank Azaria's face is genuine shock.

Overall it is a great watch and is my third favorite Michael Mann film after 'The Insider' and 'Thief'. When I saw it initially for the first time, I was quite underwhelmed but I didn't understand much of the intricacies involved in the scheming because of lack of subtitles. I loved it on my next viewing with the aid of subtitles. This was my third watch and I still found it to be great despite some problems involving the not so well fleshed out family back story given to the lesser characters- for eg the ones played by Danny Trejo and the other guy whom they used as the replacement driver. It would have been better if he didn't make those half arsed attempt at all. It was great to see Jeremy Piven in a cameo role of about 15 seconds which he manages to make memorable. LA looks great in that bluish tinge.

Rating: 4.5/5 

Thief (1981)

Director: Michael Mann
Writers:  Frank Hohimer, Michael Mann
Cast:       James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Robert Prosky, James Belushi

Becoming closer to his dream of leading a normal life, a professional safe-cracker agrees to do a job for the mafia, who have other plans for him.

A thief doing one last job before retirement scenario has been done to death in cinema and if you trace the lineage, maybe you will conclude that Michael Mann's feature film debut 'Thief' to be the big daddy. Mann worked five years in television drama before making this film and you can see many of his trademarks already in there-meticulous attention to detail, groundbreaking soundtracks, exquisite night cinematography. All the tools that are shown being used to commit the robbery are real ones and the actors were trained to do it. I think the only other film I have seen James Caan in is Godfather, and he himself rates Thief along with the former as his best performances. His mannerisms are quite similar in both and maybe it is characteristic to him. Soundtrack for the film was done by Tangerine Dreams, who also did Risky Business which I saw quite recently.

While watching Thief, you will realize how much it influenced Ryan Gosling starrer 'Drive'. Both Caan and Gosling portrays characters who are basically very similar even though they both give it very different identities due to their mannerisms. The famous dinner scene monologue lays bare the character in Thief and it very well explains his motivation behind the actions he take at the end. Apart from James Caan's great central performance, you also get some great performances in very small roles-his fatherly prison friend, his bar man, an Asian waiter who is there in only one scene etc. One part in Michael Mann's collateral that I thought was very corny was Jamie Foxx's stupid post card. Well, it turns out that it was a homage to Thief which also had a central character motivating himself with something like that. Now I cannot wait to re-watch 'Heat' to pick up other references he might have placed in it. 

It is a difficult film to describe as it is very experiential and is a must watch Neo-Noir genre classic. Up there with Micheal Mann's best who occupies a unique place i Hollywood being a genre onto himself. If you go by decades I have always considered 80s to be the weakest for English language films. I might have to reconsider that position as I catch up with some 80s classics and Thief certainly classifies as one.

Rating: 5/5  

Manhunter (1986)

Director: Michael  Mann
Writers:  Thomas Harris (Novel), Michael Mann
Cast:       William Petersen, Kim Greist, Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Tom Noonan

Former FBI profiler Will Graham  (William Petersen) returns to service to pursue a deranged serial murderer named 'Tooth Fairy' by the media. Will Graham had earlier helped in catching Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox), who is now under maximum security, by putting himself in the shoes of the psychopath leaving him physically as well as mentally scarred. He returns back to service with some trepidation because of it since he thinks there is only a thin line between him and the psychopath that he is pursuing. 

This film has been on my watch list for some time and was getting postponed due to lack of subtitles. The accents and the mumbling are a bit hard to follow without subtitles to help, and I had to concentrate really hard and be in an investigative mode to figure out what was really happening. I have heard various people describing it as the best Hannibal film and Cox's Lecktor as the best portrayal of the character Hannibal. On the former point I don't necessarily agree even though I have watched only 'Silence of the Lambs' among all other Hannibal films and I don't think Manhunter is better than it. Brian Cox is great as Hannibal even though he is there for just two or three scenes. Some have criticized Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal as too hammy and Oscar baiting. I have to watch it again to comment on that. 

Manhunter is a very good watch but in some places it has not aged particularly well. This is true especially for the soundtrack used. William Petersen was there in Friedkin's 'To Live and Die in LA', a film that I love from the 80s with its characteristic soundtrack. It is that role that put Petersen ahead in the casting for his role in Manhunter. Friedkin was also considered for the serial killer role which ultimately went to Tom Noonan who is excellent in the film. He isolated himself from the other actors and the climax scene in which Petersen jumps through the glass to confront him was the first time they met during the filming. Michael Mann is known for the ultra realism he goes for in police procedural films of his and you get that in Manhunter as well.

If I were to rank Michael Mann's film the order would be:

1) The Insider

2) Heat

3) Collateral

4) The Last of the Mohicans

5) Manhunter

His debut film 'Thief' starring James Caan is also supposed to be good.

Rating: 3.5/5

Collateral (2004)

Director: Michael Mann
Writer:    Stuart Beattie
Cast:       Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith

A cab driver (Max) finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer (Vincent) as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in Los Angeles. He must find a way to save both himself and one last victim.

One could say that it works like a buddy film with shades of True Detective in the portrayal of the two characters. Tom Cruise's Vincent in the 'Rust Cohle' cold philosophical mode and Jamie Foxx's Max as the naive man believing in the 'American Dream' and all that shit. When I watched it for the first time some years back I didn't think much of Jamie Foxx's performance which I thought was a bit stereotyped. On second watch I guess I was a bit harsh on him even though I still have problems with the strength of relationship shown between Max and Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith). I also have problems with Max's shitty island postcard which I thought was just too cheesy. 

The story hints that Vincent was using Max to frame him for the murders and finally kill him as the detective Fanning (Mark Ruffalo) suspects. I don't think that necessarily is the case since all the killings Vincent is carrying out are related to one single case. But one can never say for sure and this ambiguity serves the film very well. One could also say that as the film progresses Max becomes more like Vincent and vice-versa. What makes the film different from the usual action films is that many bystanders get killed which is a big no no in Hollywood. In a typical Hollywood film, Mark Rufallo's Fanning character don't get killed but in this one he is killed off with nonchalance by Vincent and it serves as the breaking point for Max. What is great about it is that, even though it never tries to portray Vincent in a positive light in any sort of way, we are really sad to see him go. It got nothing to with him being played by Tom Cruise in a very much against the type manner but basically because it is the most interesting and mysterious character in the film. It is certainly up there with Tom Cruise's best roles along with Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut and Rain Man. 

It was the first major film to be shot using Viper Filmstream high definition camera and Michael Mann opted for it since he thought that digital filming would suit better for the night environment of the film. The scene of coyote running across the road was unplanned and that improvised scene serves the film well. The highlight set-piece of the film would be the club scene set to Paul Oakenfold's 'Ready Steady Go' which was also used in Bourne Identity's mini chase sequence. If I were to rank Michael Mann's films, Collateral sits in the the top three along with 'The Insider' and 'Heat'. I haven't seen Manhunter yet but some people consider it as the best Hannibal Lecter film. The Last of the Mohicans is also a great one time watch. 

Rating: 4/5
 

The Insider (1999)

Director: Michael Mann
Writers:  Marie Brenner (article), Eric Roth, Michael Mann
Cast:      Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer
A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a '60 Minutes' expose on Big Tobacco.

Exceptional performances, great camera work and soundtrack and all in all Michael Mann's best film. He manages to make a thriller out of what would have been a normal documentary material. Shame that the film didn't do well. Crowe should have got his oscar for this film.

Rating: 5/5