Category: Michael Mann

COLLATERAL

By Marc S. Sanders

A salt and pepper haired gentleman in a knitted suit with sunglasses arrives at LAX before the sun sets.  He exchanges bags with a man he runs into, played by Jason Statham. Elsewhere, a driver does a polish and check on his taxi cab before beginning his evening shift.  He picks up an attractive, overworked attorney named Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) and before she hands him her business card, the driver has at least convinced the woman to re-examine her life’s purpose and consider simple ways to escape reality.  The man in the suit is Vincent played by Tom Cruise.  The cab driver is Max played by Jamie Foxx.  They are about to collide with one another on this night and put Michael Mann’s film, Collateral, into play.

Following being a massive fan of the TV show Miami Vice, and the films Thief, Heat and The Insider, I remember my anticipation sky rocketing when I saw the trailers and write ups for Collateral.  Mann, Cruise, Foxx, and crime in a cool looking L.A. with a symphonic soundtrack? I’m there!  It seemed like a perfect formula.  When I finally saw the movie, I think I was let down because it was too formulaic following a step-by-step recipe.  The editing for Collateral is abundantly cookie cutter, never taking any risks with its story.

Vincent chats with Max as soon as he gets in the cab.  He offers eleven hundred dollars to occupy Max’ evening, transporting him from one location to the next. Max has dreams of running his own limo company one day and this easy money is too good to resist.  It’s only when Vincent tosses someone out a fourth-floor window to land on the roof of the cab that Max realizes there’s a hitch to this arrangement.  

Vincent is a hitman out to check off a list of targets before sunrise, and he needs Max as a cab escort.  Threats to Max’ ill mother in the hospital will keep the driver in check, and if inconveniences like a shattered windshield draw the cops’ attention then Max will have to abide by Vincent’s demand for no interference with his plans.  

The two hour running time of Collateral is structured on one stop after another.  Mann abides by side scenes from Stuart Beattie’s script to look at the undercover night detective (Mark Ruffalo) who is one step behind the pair’s frequent stops within the city.   I guess it’s fortunate for this guy that ballistics and coroner’s reports are quickly and readily available within minutes and hours to connect some dots.  

In between the kills, Vincent and Max chat in the cab.  Standard stuff really where Tom Cruise is at one time charming and other times sociopathic.  Jamie Foxx is the bright but frightened guy with dialogue that doesn’t amount to much in convincing this unwanted passenger to either let him go free or to give up on his mission.

Ironically, the many scenes shared between Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are the least interesting parts of the film.  When the sound editing isn’t failing by making their dialogue sound like incoherent mumbling, neither guy is ever convincing the other to look in a new direction or consider another idea.  Therefore, the conversations never go anywhere.  Look at films like The Silence Of The Lambs, Cape Fear, Seven, and especially Mann’s best picture to date, Heat by comparison.  Those films work when either the antagonist or protagonist allow themselves to consider the arguments, even if it’s just for a second, against the ones they are debating.

There is action and violence in Collateral, but it’s really a talking piece.  Still, the best exchange of dialogue occurs with Foxx and other cast mates besides Cruise.  A great scene occurs when Vincent insists that Max act under the guise that he is Vincent when he has to report to the drug kingpin employer who originally hired him (a surprise welcome from an at the time unknown Javier Bardem); great acting and writing happening here.  The early scene between Jada Pinkett Smith and Jamie Foxx also works at a thought provoking and interesting level.  These scenes are short one act plays that belong elsewhere.  Jamie Foxx is doing some great work in these moments.

Unfortunately, when Foxx and Pinkett Smith reconnect later in the film, they are not written with the same kind of intelligence during a run and hide third act climax.  The suspense is absent here because the setup is ridiculous.  While standing on the top level of a parking garage, Max can easily see Annie in a fourteenth-floor office window, blocks away across the city, and specifically direct her where to run from the dangerous killer who is a few floors below, all while using a dying cell phone.  

More to the point, why is Annie still wearing a suit and heels, with her hair and makeup done up, at four o’clock in the morning? I know an aggressive lawyer never stops working, but don’t they go home, pour a glass of white wine, get into sweats and pop open the laptop while Miles Davis plays softly on the stereo?  How would these guys even know this is where Annie would be at four in the morning? Reader, you might tell me to dismiss what’s merely circumstantial here, and normally I would.  Yet, if I’m an expert hitman like Vincent is supposed to be, my first instinct is to go to Annie’s home first before the office in the middle of the night.  It’s the circumstances that negate the believability of the main character.  

As expected, Los Angeles looks moody and cool like in any other Michael Mann picture.  He’s got blazing overhead shots that emit a white glow in the thick of night.  The wolf is holding a fang and claw to the neck of the sheep as they careen through this endless city maze.  In that respect, the environment of this film works like a great character game master. What turn or straight avenue or bridge is going to work in either saving Max or getting him killed?

The technique of this filmmaker, who I usually favor, is here.  It’s been seen many times before for the other sharp, well-dressed killers in Michael Mann’s worlds. I welcome it back, but it’s not new or inventive in Collateral.  I guess that’s why the film is ordinary.  It lacks the depth that other productions from Mann rely upon.  The setups are quite amateurish and most of the talking is wholly uninteresting.

In spite of a phenomenal and reputable cast and crew, it’s a shame this Michael Mann installment is only ho hum in its finished product.  Collateral needed another script rewrite, followed by some additional reshoots.  There was a better movie to made here. 

THE INSIDER

By Marc S. Sanders

When I think of Michael Mann’s The Insider from 1999, I cannot get over how deep it is with its storytelling. Inspired by true events and based upon a Vanity Fair article, I consider the adjective “deep” because it’s really a one-story trajectory, but it covers so many different facets; so many different industries and how they operate and sometimes overlap with one another. The tobacco industry, journalism in both television and print, state law and even the deterioration of an American household. Michael Mann shows how one simple action can balloon into something bigger affecting others all at once. You gotta get through one thing before you swim deeper into the bottomless pool of policy, contracts, ethics and threats.

Russell Crowe portrays Jeffrey Wigand, a top leading chemist with the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company. Upon realizing that he has detrimental information should it go public, the company fires him and compels him to sign a confidentiality agreement not to reveal any of his research or activities while in service to them. That won’t suffice for the incredibly powerful tobacco company though, as Dr. Wigand receives threats that include disturbing emails, possible prowlers and a bullet that mysteriously turns up in his mail box.

Wigand crosses paths with Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino), a producer with 60 Minutes at CBS Television. Bergman works often with famed interviewer Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer, who should have been nominated, much less won an Oscar). Wigand gets more and more motivated to go on Bergman’s show and tell everything about how the tobacco industry manipulates cigarette manufacturing to make it all the more addicting.

Bergman wants the story but he wants to play it carefully. Toeing the the line of maintaining Wigand’s confidentiality agreement might require a deposition by the scientist in a state courtroom so that his testimony will be public record. In other words, get a state to subpoena him and then the interview can happen because what Wigand says in an interview is already public record.

It’s complicated. Not so much for the viewer though. It’s complicated for Jeffrey Wigand. Russell Crowe emotes his rock and hard place situation with terrible anguish and a short temper. Michael Mann gets great closeups that capture the stress like deep wrinkles and dark circles under the eyes along with pale white skin, a big gut, wrinkled dress shirts, and rough shaves. The stress also carries over to his southern gentile wife (Diane Venora in an entirely different role from Mann’s Heat) and his two girls. They are collateral damage here. Wigand could also lose medical coverage on top of his salary and the threats of civil liability. Jeffrey Wigand is an ant under the very large heel of Big Tobacco.

Lowell Bergman also has obstacles from within his own camp. Journalistic integrity is tested with Wigand’s interview. It’d almost be better if Wigand was lying. That way Big Tobacco could not sue CBS for breach of a confidentiality contract. The more truth he tells, the greater the liability. Considering that CBS Corporate is in the middle of a buyout that could be very profitable for a select few, CBS is disregarding Bergman’s reputation for bringing in experts and informants that have made 60 Minutes the most watched news program on television.

These are the dilemmas that comprise Mann’s near three-hour film. What’s as interesting is the in between material. With Mann sometimes shooting with a documentary like approach, we catch glimpses of how a journalist will pass a colleague in a rotating lobby door and they’ll make arrangements to exchange one story in a time slot for another. These are mere seconds, but it paints a colorful setting that the news never sleeps. We see how Big Tobacco (represented by a slimy Michael Gambon) can subtly intimidate one man in a corporate office. We see a trio of lawyers take a phone call from a private jet they are piloting to consider Wigand as a material witness. We see how one of those lawyers (Bruce McGill) will handle an objection during his questioning of a witness (an unforgettable scene). We see how Wigand must adjust with his family to downgrade to a smaller home with old dusty kitchen cabinets and how it all gradually weighs down his marriage. We see how Bergman has to be covert with meeting Wigand in a hotel lobby. We also see how Big Tobacco can issue a smear campaign and how Bergman has to go across the street to a newspaper colleague to first ask for a deadline of print to be pushed back, and later how he grants a story to the paper to reveal shady dealings and how to refute what’s already been falsely claimed. There’s even a deal that indirectly involves the infamous Unabomber. It’s these little details that keep the film’s pulse alive.

Even before all of this begins, Mann demonstrates the lengths Bergman and Wallace will go to for 60 Minutes. They go deep into the Middle East to get an exclusive interview with the Head Sheik for the Hezbollah terrorist group. Christopher Plummer as Mike Wallace is marvelous here as he stands up against an irate bodyguard strapped with a machine gun to argue about how close he will sit next to the Sheik. If you want the story, the true story, you have to be genuine and be fearless with risk.

I can’t say enough good things about The Insider. It’s truly an education to watch the film with blazing cinematography in blues and grey hues from Dante Spinotti. Mann is always known for his coolness with film, dating all the way back to the MTV vibe of Miami Vice to Thief with James Caan, and his LA crime drama Heat. The tradition carries on here.

As well, the dialogue is so crisp from a script by Mann and Eric Roth. Pacino is memorably given an opportunity to sum up the machinations of CBS corporate in the third act of the film. The Mike Wallace character is not written as a television personality with a cue card. He’s got real, good, seasoned intelligence in his words. Plummer just enhances the script.

The Insider ranks at the top of the list of films focused on journalism next to features like Sidney Lumet’s Network, Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight and Alan J Pakula’s All The President’s Men. It explores the danger that can come from truths that need to be told which others never want disclosed. It covers the methods by which parties are recruited to help get the truth and the lengths operatives will go to, to squash a story.

The Insider is a gripping, magnificent film.

HEAT (1995)

By Marc S. Sanders

My all time favorite crime drama, as well another one of my most favorite films, is Michael Mann’s Heat which is widely recognized for the much-anticipated moment where Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro finally share the screen together for the first time. The Godfather Part II never counted as their characters performed in different time periods. Still, Heat has so much more going for it, beyond just its headliners.

Michael Mann wrote the screenplay he directed. It deeply involves both the thief, Neil McCauly (DeNiro), and the homicide detective who pursues him, Vincent Hanna (Pacino), with inspiration from two real life characters. Therefore, this film drives with more authenticity than a standard Lethal Weapon picture. Much more is at stake than a standard kill shot, arrest or the score to take down. The women and children and partners these guys become associated with carry a weight and sense of value. Even the hoods who betray them hold significance. How they matter and are part of the story is just as pertinent.

The story focuses on DeNiro, with Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore taking down high stakes scores, not petty liquor store hold ups. An early armored truck hold up goes well until a new partner executes the three security guards in broad daylight on the street, at point blank range. Pacino takes the case along with his brilliant squad of detectives that includes great supporting performances from Mykelti Williamson, Ted Levine and Wes Studi. Then it becomes a cat and mouse tale where two equals match one another in wits, skill, and experience. To believe the equal match up though required casting Pacino and DeNiro. The film would not work with any other pair. Through their respective careers, their various performances came off different than one another. Yet, it has been often easy to imagine either one of them playing their classic roles instead. I could envision DeNiro as Michael Corleone or Serpico. I can also envision Pacino as Rupert Pupkin or Travis Bickle. The range of these actors is unlimited.

Diane Venora and Ashley Judd are two actresses not used enough in films. As the wife to Pacino’s round the clock detective, Mann provides time for Venora to show the pain of a woman in love with a man who can hardly ever be home because he’s always on the prowl of DeNiro’s professional thief and his crew. Venora is a likable woman in the role, only the circumstances of her marriage and the difficulties of dealing with a troubled pre teen (a fantastic Natalie Portman who will break your heart with just three scenes) are gradually making her cold. She has a great monologue midway through the film that is terribly dark, as she surmises Pacino’s cunning detective.

Ashley Judd is a different kind of cold as the wife of Val Kilmer’s gambling addicted sharpshooter. She’s a beautiful housewife and mother to a toddler that is trying to maintain a happy home. However, the balance of living with a career criminal is near impossible to maintain.

Michael Mann put so much thought into characters like this. Other directors and writers would keep the story on the streets and in the hideouts and city precincts. Mann goes not just for the low level criminal hoods who provide information in a night club at 2 AM. Mann allows his crime drama to spill over into the home.

He even allows a side story to occur with an ex con (Dennis Haysbert) out on parole trying to get his life back in order. What does this guy with his loving girlfriend have to do with anything else? Eventually, the bridge is connected, and it comes down to an emotional and heartbreaking conclusion.

Heat deliberately takes its time to flesh out a lot of great characters. The large cast are all given moments to stand apart from the rest. It is primarily a quiet, talking picture of careful planning and investigation. However, when the legwork is complete, Mann arrives at two scenes right in the middle of the film. The first is the now famous coffee shop sit down confrontation between Neil and Vincent. Mann did a masterful job of capturing the two actors doing some of their finest work with nothing tangible to aid them; no props or grand music or effects. Just a table in the middle of a crowded coffee shop. The professionals allow their history to show only so much but the cop and thief know this is not going to be easy from here on out. Mann did numerous takes, but with at least two cameras showing at each go round. So, if Pacino is talking, we see DeNiro’s facial reactions and vice versa. Pacino’s take #11 is also DeNiro’s take #11. It is one of the all-time great scenes in film history. Beautifully written. Beautifully constructed. Beautifully performed.

The next centerpiece is the bank robbery that occurs at midday in downtown Los Angeles. Neil and crew are almost scott free when Vincent and squad intercept them in the middle of the street. What sets this massive shootout (based on a real incident) above all others is that I actually get choked up and emotional over the moment. Characters that I have become acquainted with for the last 90 minutes are swept up in huge risks and danger of massive gunfire and ambushes. I even become terrified for the extras that Mann includes in this scene. I’ve watched this scene a hundred times and I can’t help but actually get tearful over it. Mann has the power to make me have an affection for these characters. As well, how will the spouses, who become aware of this matter, be going forward? That accounts for much of the latter half of the film.

Neil holds true to a philosophy he learned while doing time. If you spot the heat around the corner, allow nothing to interfere that you cannot walk away from immediately to avoid getting apprehended. He is put to the test of that motto when he falls in love with an introverted graphic designer played with quiet reserve by Amy Brenneman. This storyline will sum up the ending. Again, Mann shows the characters on the outside of these guys with their guns, working in an underworld environment. How do the risks of these guys play out on others?

Technically, Heat succeeds as well with brilliant blues, blacks and whites in cinematography. Major accolades for Dante Spinotti. Everything from the well-lit coffee shop to Neil’s unfurnished, ocean view apartment and even a blue Camaro that Neil drives away in through an underground tunnel are brilliant. Spinotti paid careful attention to the evolution of the characters. As Neil drives into that tunnel, the car turns white hot. He is on his way to escape with an unsure Brenneman by his side. Often in moments like this, the film tells more than any piece of dialogue could ever sum up.

Heat is a must watch film for genuine portraits of characters few of us will ever cross paths with. We should understand, though, they have more than just a drive to steal or to get an arrest. These guys exist for more than just the score. Few crime dramas ever approach that angle, and that is why Heat is such a special film.