- Sep 22, 2013
- 4,956
- 250
- 85
Michael Mann was 'carefully' developing his American cime-folktale opus on the perfect cop chasing the perfect thief, and he'd tried various 'forms' of the formulaic story in other previous projects before culminating the 'dream' in his 1995 epic-thread Heat, featuring a really unusually stellar cast (Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Ashley Judd, Diane Venora). This movie as Janet Maslin (film-critic) stated, "has got it all" and it leaves no room for anyone seeking either slick crime-cop storytelling of longwinded unwound relaxing/comforting human emotion-vignettes. Even if it is a tad too long in length (approx. 3hrs!), it's a nice view of why Americans appreciate crime-stories. Personally, I have to say, it's one of the best Blu-ray format (HD) movies out there for consumers today.
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The film opens with a daring and thrilling armored-car robbery performed by De Niro's team of wily robbers, wearing hockey-masks and conducting a mid-day heist with perfect and eerie precision.
The film then introduces the cop who's going to chase De Niro's character, the leader/captain of the thief-crew, who's portrayed ambitiously and diligently if a little oddly by the great Al Pacino. The film proceeds to explore the human experience of the cop and the thief, and their complicated girlfriends/wives 'caught up' in the 'heat' of their dramatic lives in Los Angeles.
Towards the latter part of this very long Mann movie, Pacino's character confronts De Niro's character in the open road and courts him to a coffee-meeting at an LA diner during which these two legendary American film-stars reveal why their characters are so 'absorbed' as a cop/thief. This is a nice touch, and it serves as a premonition for the upcoming climactic and very epic bank robbery scene.
The robbery goes really well until it sees trouble because of a devastating inside-man/crew betrayal, forcing De Niro's character (Neil) and his crew (Chris, Michael, etc.) to simply survive the street-shootout with Al Pacino's character (Vincent) and his team of ambitious armed detective-cops.
Will Pacino's Vincent 'catch' De Niro's Neil in the end? That's really the gear that drives the energy of this ambitious/epic crime-film, and it invites American audiences to ponder the face of crime-cinema and why it captures a certain American aesthetic regarding controlled sanity...and robbery/crime.
If Pacino was not satisfied with Dog Day Afternoon, he can certainly take delight in the knowledge that this epic Michael Mann presentation will remind everyone why/how he's become a mainstay in sociocultural d. If it wasn't so long, I'd give it a solid 4/5 stars, since it's basically low-brow emotional entertainment, and it's not a 'literature' classic like, say, Gangs of New York, so I'll give it a 'cheerful' 3/5 stars, and I'd argue it's as 'good' as, say, Roger Avary's Killing Zoe.
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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)
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The film opens with a daring and thrilling armored-car robbery performed by De Niro's team of wily robbers, wearing hockey-masks and conducting a mid-day heist with perfect and eerie precision.
The film then introduces the cop who's going to chase De Niro's character, the leader/captain of the thief-crew, who's portrayed ambitiously and diligently if a little oddly by the great Al Pacino. The film proceeds to explore the human experience of the cop and the thief, and their complicated girlfriends/wives 'caught up' in the 'heat' of their dramatic lives in Los Angeles.
Towards the latter part of this very long Mann movie, Pacino's character confronts De Niro's character in the open road and courts him to a coffee-meeting at an LA diner during which these two legendary American film-stars reveal why their characters are so 'absorbed' as a cop/thief. This is a nice touch, and it serves as a premonition for the upcoming climactic and very epic bank robbery scene.
The robbery goes really well until it sees trouble because of a devastating inside-man/crew betrayal, forcing De Niro's character (Neil) and his crew (Chris, Michael, etc.) to simply survive the street-shootout with Al Pacino's character (Vincent) and his team of ambitious armed detective-cops.
Will Pacino's Vincent 'catch' De Niro's Neil in the end? That's really the gear that drives the energy of this ambitious/epic crime-film, and it invites American audiences to ponder the face of crime-cinema and why it captures a certain American aesthetic regarding controlled sanity...and robbery/crime.
If Pacino was not satisfied with Dog Day Afternoon, he can certainly take delight in the knowledge that this epic Michael Mann presentation will remind everyone why/how he's become a mainstay in sociocultural d. If it wasn't so long, I'd give it a solid 4/5 stars, since it's basically low-brow emotional entertainment, and it's not a 'literature' classic like, say, Gangs of New York, so I'll give it a 'cheerful' 3/5 stars, and I'd argue it's as 'good' as, say, Roger Avary's Killing Zoe.
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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)
