I have found myself over the years consistently
enthralled by Michael Mann’s movies. He creates stories of men entirely
dedicated to their professions, seemingly without limits. Al Pacino and Robert
De Niro faced off as detective and thief, two men who would stop at nothing
(including the loss of a relationship) in completing the mission in Heat. Daniel Day-Lewis was a
frontiersman trying to save the woman he loved in The Last of the Mohicans. Tom Cruise was a fiercely professional
hitman toying with Jamie Foxx’s cab driver in Collateral. And Foxx and Colin Farrell lived the lives of
undercover narcotics detectives in Miami
Vice. Mann sets these stories amid the allure of gorgeous
cinematography, often making well-known cities look like brand new tailored
playgrounds for men with fast cars and guns, whether it’s L.A., Miami, or Hong
Kong in his latest, Blackhat.
