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Has Michael Mann lost it?
Adam Lee Davies mourns the passing of a major Hollywood talent as Michael Mann's 'Public Enemies' sees the great director still running on empty
When firing on all pistons, Michael Mann can conjure up something close to on-screen alchemy. ‘Heat’ (1995) and ‘The Insider’ (1999) were both hugely engrossing films that combined tight, economic storytelling, cool, startling visuals, complex sound designs and wildly eclectic soundtracks. Mann’s forceful direction leaves you in no doubt that every frame is fashioned with the utmost care and attention. These films are pure cinema, and Mann was, at the time, a master practitioner.Yet, since this brace of late-nineties classics, Mann has struggled to keep the quality bar high. He has tried his hand at lumbering prestige pictures such as ‘Ali’ (2001). He has investigated pioneering filming techniques by shooting ‘Collateral’ (2004) in HD digital video. He has even resorted to raiding his own back catalogue, directing a big-screen version of his hit ’80s TV show ‘Miami Vice’ (2006). All of these films have been deeply flawed, and so is his latest, ‘Public Enemies’, which stars Johnny Depp as Depression-era gangster John Dillinger. It finds Mann, like some modern-day Nero, fiddling about with his fancy cameras while the copious period details stifle any and all plotting and character development.
His once magisterial visual flair appears to have been thrown out with the bathwater when he decided to ditch film for video. ‘Public Enemies’ suffers badly from a lack of visual depth. It’s not the first time either: ‘Collateral’ offered some interesting aesthetic results, but one still came away with the feeling that the lightweight equipment and ease of shooting took up more of Mann’s interest than ironing out a problematic genre narrative. It’s a strikingly-shot film in which he, Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx drive around LA in search of a third act that never materialises. The undercooked excess of ‘Miami Vice’ (2006), meanwhile, offered much of the same, but this time without even the pretence of a plot to keep us interested. It’s a movie that resembles a well-filmed fashion shoot and packs all the narrative clout of a perfume ad.
His pitch-perfect approach to casting has also drifted. ‘Collateral’ would have us believe that Foxx – a strapping six-footer with a megawatt smile and quarterback good looks – is in fact a sad-sack cab driver with nothing going for him. ‘Public Enemies’ is not exactly miscast, but parades a few too many chiselled, good-looking gents before us to be taken entirely serious. Dillinger and his nemesis, Melvin Purvis (played by Christian Bale in Mann’s film), were played by Warren Oates and Ben Johnson in 1973’s ‘Dillinger’, and while there aren’t too many like that around any more, Mann’s cast look like boys dressing up. And if Depp and Bale do just about pass muster, there’s little about the lean, easy looks of Billy Crudup that suggest he’d be much of a fit for the role of bulldog-faced FBI director J Edgar Hoover other than the requirement to jimmy yet another handsome face on to the screen.
Mann’s obsessive attention to detail – arguably the cornerstone of all his work – is the one thing that hasn’t deserted him. It has, however, begun to weigh down his films. The period look and feel of ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ (1992) was central to elevating it beyond the status of a workaday gung-ho romancer. But his unwieldy biopic ‘Ali’ (2001) is so overstuffed with rinky-dink period trappings and cultural veracity that everything else becomes secondary. The result is a cumbersome film that somehow manages – apart from the few moments when Mann lets the film breathe and, along with star Will Smith, dazzles us with fragments of placid, existential calm – to suck all the life out of one of the most charismatic characters of the twentieth century. To be fair, ‘Public Enemies’ suffers less from this, but one still feels the dynamism of the story is being strangled by the detail.
Being such a master of the medium is an enviable gift. Hitchcock had it, Tati had it and Guy Ritchie once read about it in an in-flight magazine. On the evidence of ‘Public Enemies’, Mann – it’s sad to report – seems to have misplaced it.
Author: Adam Lee Davies
User comments on this story
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- Graham said...
- All I know is this - I didn't care for any of the characters. When they were killed I felt nothing. When Dillinger died I felt nothing. I wasn't moved in any way. I didn't feel their pain, fear, joy, anxiety or loss. Posted on Jul 12 2009 09:53
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- Fiercehairdo said...
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Totally agree with this article.
The final act of Collateral is utterly ludicrous and I'm surprised so many people are taken in by it.
As for Mann making films for, and about, men: I have to say that most of the men in his films are laughable macho stereotypes - hard bitten, gruff, living by 'codes', obsessively violent etc. And as for the women, well obviously in Mann's world women count for nothing.
The men are always ridiculously efficient at their jobs also. It some times feels like films for Top Gear fans.
And the music? Sometimes great - but sometimes very dodgy soft rock.
I Know this last point is gonna sound like heresy but I even think Heat isn't quite the masterpiece its claimed to be. Anyone who's seen Mann's very silly "LA Takedown" will know that Heat was a remake of this far inferior first attempt. The two films are nearly identical except that all the nonsense macho posturing and silly bromance stuff is unmasked without all the super slick finish and better casting of Heat. How good can he be when it takes him two attempts (one an utter failure) to get a film right.
But to be fair, The Insider was fantastic. Posted on Jul 07 2009 10:14 - Report as inappropriate
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- ARCHGATE said...
- Michael Mann makes films for men about men. Public Enemies is a fantastic film. Depp is perfectly cast as Dillinger and the action is breathtaking. The ending has an unexpected emotional punch which was worth the price of admission alone. My only wish was for the film to be even longer. I have a feeling this Time Out review has been written by someone who has read too many books on cinema and not lived a requisite varied life to appreciate a film about a bank robber constantly on the run for his life. By the way, the soundtrack to this film is tremendous. Posted on Jul 07 2009 07:04
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- Justin Berkovi said...
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I disagree with some of the points here. I think the main problem is actually very simple - Mann needs to return to FILM. Miami Vice was a little disappointing but Collateral is a good film and was served reasonably well by DV. However Public Enemies is an unfortunate example of something that could be close to sheer brilliance if served by the proper medium. I thought the performances and casting were fine, the set pieces brilliant and the dialogue and acting fantastic.
What washes the film out though is the use of Digital Video. Quite simply it cannot cut it yet on the big screen no matter what ANYONE says. I do wonder why Mann didn't use RED cameras though? His choice of hardware just doesn't do the film justice and this is a real shame. Imagine it shot on film? Would have looked beautiful.
We can only hope Mann's mates tell him to return to film. Posted on Jul 07 2009 04:06 - Report as inappropriate
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- Andy said...
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“‘Collateral’ would have us believe that Foxx – a strapping six-footer with a megawatt smile and quarterback good looks – is in fact a sad-sack cab driver with nothing going for him”
You are helping perpetuate the Hollywood myth that all you need is good looks to succeed in life. In the real world I’m sure everyone has known someone who could have been doing more with their life but has not had the chances in life or even more likely have not taken them when presented. That is why Foxx’s character is so believable, because he is flawed like real people. As for Public Enemies: “Mann’s cast look like boys dressing up.” Deep is actually fractionally older now than Oates was when he played the part and does a great job. Posted on Jul 06 2009 04:11 - Report as inappropriate
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- derrin zikks said...
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"‘Public Enemies’ suffers badly from a lack of visual depth."
Not sure if this is a deliberate ambiguity, but actually the film uses staging in depth in ways not possible with celluloid.
It's the most visually exciting and inventive film of the year so far -- but keep going with the terrible mixed metaphors.
" When firing on all pistons, Michael Mann can conjure up something close to on-screen alchemy. "
what do pistons have to do with alchemy? Posted on Jul 06 2009 04:08 - Report as inappropriate
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- gary said...
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The casting of Depp and Bale only hangs their lack of acting chops out in public for all to see.
Just because Mann cast them in his movie, it doesn't suddenly make them any good.
I wouldn't accuse them of acting badly based on what has gone before without giving them a chance and if you are going to redeem recent past work the best place to do it is in a Mann movie.
I'm looking forward to Mann's next project because I am more encouraged after Dillinger than after Miami Vice.
Maybe more success at the box office will allow him to regain control in casting too.
The correlation between being good looking and being a below par actor is a contemporary disease. Posted on Jul 05 2009 02:14 - Report as inappropriate
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- Adam B said...
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Where's Geoff Andrew when you need him? someone to countermand and weigh in against this madness. First of all, 'boys dressing up!' Both Dillinger and Purvis were only 31 in 1934 so the youthful-looks of Depp and Bale work a damn site better than Oates and especially Johnson, who couldn't have passed for 41 never mind ten years younger. I'm surprised anyone is so cynical as to believe that just because Milius' actors were grizzled character players they must be better actors and more authentic. Mann is not hidebound by historical varacity (Purvis did not, in fact, kill BF Nelson, and indeed Nelson outlived Dillinger) and you can be sure he knew this. The casting of Bale and especially Depp underlines the point about glamour and perception, about Dillinger's movie star status and self-image.
Second, will someone please clarify about the vitriol that has greeted Mann's switch to HD video? 'Lack of visual depth'?? Surely there is an immediacy to the look of Public Enemies that perfectly captures the sense of lives lived on the fly, as Dillinger says, in the here and now, with a moment-by-moment challenge to death and demise.
And that goes for Miami Vice, too, which is a great film. The whole point of it is the lustre and lack, the push and pull, of a life lived on the surface and in flux, an elevated and existential life in which identity, emotions and feelings are as transient as a ray of light across a body or a room, a crack of lightning or the calm of an Azure caribbean seascape. And this thematic demanded a more experimental, diffuse narrative structure, and NOT a spoonfeeding of reductive plotting so anyone not up to the challenge wouldn't get bored
How sad to see a great director and artist challenging himself and his audience and redefining the parameters of his art and receiving only negative press. I, for one, hope it continues for a long time to come. The others can go and watch Transformers! Posted on Jul 04 2009 13:10 - Report as inappropriate
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- Angus said...
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Can't speak for Public Enemies but Collateral is an excellent movie.
The rant on casting good looking men is, frankly, a little bit bizarre.
I agree on Miami Vice but he's not losing or lost it by any means. Posted on Jul 04 2009 10:13 - Report as inappropriate
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- Michael_35mm said...
- Um...not. Posted on Jul 03 2009 14:24
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- gary said...
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as much as anything, his casting has gone to pot recently. but it seems he can't get these films off the ground, or the budget unless he puts a Tom Cruise or a Jamie Foxx upfront. That means low par acting, pretty boys instead of real actors. Johnny Depp as Dillinger is a joke, and Bale has been given plenty of chances now so off with his head too.
I just wonder what's next for Mann: Eddie Murphy as Malcolm X? Posted on Jul 03 2009 13:15 - Report as inappropriate
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