4 Underrated Michael Mann Films to See Before 'Blackhat'
Michael Mann, who directed such modern classics as The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider, and Collateral, returns with his new thriller Blackhat on Friday. The cyber-terrorism thriller features Chris Hemsworth as a super-buff super-hacker, but early reviews indicate that Blackhat probably won’t be making anyone’s Top 5 list of their favorite Mann movies anytime soon. If the director’s history provides any guide though, viewers may find more to appreciate about the crime drama as the years pass. Need proof? Here are four underappreciated Mann films that play better now than they did when they first hit theaters.
Related: Chris Hemsworth Confronts the Notion He’s Too Good-Looking to Play a Hacker
Scott Glenn and Alberta Watson in The Keep
The Keep (1983)
If Guillermo Del Toro directed a Michael Mann movie, it might look a little something like Mann’s second feature, a supernatural curio that’s fascinating and intensely flawed. Set during World War II, the film finds a troop of Nazi soldiers taking up residence in a mountain citadel and unleashing an ancient evil being that dwells within its walls. The movie’s mixture of mysticism and horror isn’t a natural fit for its director, who seems more at ease depicting the casual bursts of violence — like a pair of exploding heads, for example —and the tensions that erupt within the army unit, as well as with their reluctant helpers including Jewish professor Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellen, still looking eternally 62, despite being only 44 at the time). But The Keep also takes some intense, downright insane tonal and narrative risks that Mann would never be able to get away with today, provided he even wanted to. It’s probably just as well that the movie’s critical and commercial failure sent him back to the crime genre, but The Keep still serves as a tantalizing glimpse at an alternate career path. (Available on Amazon Instant, Google Play, iTunes, and YouTube)
Ali (2001)
Even though it grossed over $100 million and snagged its star Will Smith his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor, Mann’s sprawling account of the life and times of the iconic boxer has never found its way onto a list of the finest boxing movies. As a biopic it has some problems: The director and his team of screenwriters struggle to fit the breadth of Ali’s career as a boxer, war protestor and controversial public figure into a 150-minute runtime. But Ali definitely should be ranked as a boxing movie heavyweight — the fight sequences are consistently terrific, eschewing the stylization of Raging Bull or the gloriously over-the-top cheesiness of any of the Rocky title bouts. Mann instead emphasizes the endurance and rhythm that are key parts of boxing, allowing the rounds to play out without condensing them into a montage and keeping his camera hanging outside the ring as Ali ducks and weaves. Then, when he goes in for a punch, the director gets up close with a digital camera to register the impact. Not for nothing, but Smith’s performance is at its best when he’s in the ring as well, with the physical demands of those sequences distracting him from his uneven attempt at imitating Ali’s distinctive vocal cadence. (Available on Amazon Instant, Google Play, iTunes, Netflix, YouTube, and Vudu)
Miami Vice (2006)
Some feature film adaptations of popular television shows go out of their way to recreate what people loved about the series. (See: The Brady Bunch Movie.) Apart from the characters’ names and the Miami backdrop, Mann essentially threw out everything folks remembered from the small screen version of his early ‘80s cop drama when he blew it up to theatrical size. He also reduced the typical procedural narrative to its barest elements—there’s very little exposition, limited character development and a narrative that’s really just a list of connect-the-dots clues. By dropping all that extra fat, Mann creates one of the leanest, meanest and all-around best movies of his career, a film that actually improves upon its source material instead of being enslaved to it. Vice’s strictly-focused storytelling is matched by its formal control, with the director making terrific use of the digital cameras he tried out on Ali and Collateral to stage intimate moments in front of epic backdrops. Yes, Miami Vice, the movie isn’t Miami Vice, the TV show — it’s better. (Available for streaming on Amazon Instant, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube, and Vudu)
Public Enemies (2009)
If structure is the key to Miami Vice’s excellence, it’s also the source of Public Enemies’ failings. In re-telling the story of ‘30s gangster John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), Mann divides the movie into two distinct hour-long acts, each one beginning with a prison break. The first time Dillinger gets loose, he heads back into a world where he’s still an outlaw king, able to live large without immediate fear of capture or reprisal. But after his re-capture and subsequent escape, the landscape has drastically shifted for criminals of his ilk, and he now struggles to stay one step ahead of dogged federal agent (Christian Bale) he would have easily lapped before. It’s an interesting storytelling approach, but the midpoint prison sequence stops the movie dead in its tracks and the second half is something of a slog as the audience waits for Dillinger’s inevitable death. That said, Public Enemies does boast some of the finest set-pieces Mann has choreographed to date, including a nocturnal chase through a forest and the climactic ambush outside a Chicago movie theater that puts an end to Dillinger’s career once and for all. And in its brutality and the ugliness of the characters’ behavior, the film does convincingly counter the gangster movie myth of honor among thieves. (Available on streaming on Amazon Instant, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube, Vudu)
