Blackhat - Director's Cut

Michael Mann's Blackhat is about professionalism and the application of group expertise. Less ambitious action films only have room for one figure of intellectual authority, usually an infallible, young, white male who gets to hurry the whole piece forward. Supporting casts are exactly that, subordinated, typically portrayed as a gaggle of empty suits, only called on to gasp as the lead character makes their latest logical leap. Thanks to Chris Hemsworth's Hathaway, Blackhat does have its own gigantic blue eye, fortunately though Mann is more excited about collaboration - how apparently disparate outlooks and disciplines can, when correctly managed, feed back into a more dynamic, free-flowing whole.

It's this energy that carries the characters, and the film itself. Know-how is deployed as an adrenal rush that collides with, then powers through, the enemy's machinery. Each member of the unit drafted to investigate a trade exchange hack that leaves America embarrassed and China massively out of pocket has a distinct role to play. Viola Davis' FBI Special Agent and Holt McCallany's US Marshal, both prime targets for sneering contempt in a lesser piece, prove themselves indispensable to the investigation. In Mann and screenwriter Morgan Davis Foehl's film every person is in the room for a reason. The team members contribute, each bringing a specialist, singular, knowledge - not to mention slang - to the table.

Viewed in Mann's preferred cut (distribution limited to New York film retrospectives and torrents derived from American pay television), Blackhat often feels like a companion piece to the director's feature debut Thief. Both films are about experts able to surmount catastrophic situations with rapid problem solving. The rush of this incremental success blasting Hathaway and James Caan's Frank towards their conclusions. There are key differences though. Whereas Frank was prepared to isolate himself then physically tear down his life, Hathaway is actually willing to open up and collaborate. Rather than push her aside, Hathaway draws Tang Wei's cyber attack partner and love interest Chen Lien closer as their enemies draw near. This remodelling makes for a more visceral, romantic conclusion - perhaps indicative of the director's senior perspective. Mann's juiced-up, metaphysical hero has finally found a counterpart he can trust his life to.

Thief

Sat across from a woman he's decided loves him, James Caan's Frank starts to talk about surviving in prison. How he had to deconstruct and eliminate basic drives and feelings to operate within a rigged, brutal, system. It transformed him. He is an individual, isolated by design, successfully working a small, capable crew. He's at the top of his game, but beginning to realise perhaps he needs more. His career isn't satisfying. Meticulously plotted diamond heists are no longer challenging.

In spite of this, Thief isn't about a man opening himself up and successfully experiencing the simple joys of life. Quite the opposite, Thief is about a man attempting to embrace a regular Joe existence, and realising how vulnerable that makes him. It creates targets, that allow people to threaten and attack him. Entering a corporate structure robs him of his freedom. His hit-and-run heisting incompatible with a machine that wants to industrialise his process. This terrifies Frank. Michael Mann's debut feature locates a monastic, Bushido core in precise criminality. To excel, your emotions must be dulled, you must act as if already dead. Eliminate all ties. Retaliate like a savage.

Tangerine Dream - Beach Scene

Invoking Phil Collins

Caught the Ashes to Ashes finale last night, wasn't Daniel Mays good as Old Scratch? I didn't keep up with the series, so discussing content would be a bit of a dead end. Instead, I just wanted to make a quick comment about the musical quotes littered throughout the show. They're a bit of a waste aren't they? Why feature a track like In the Air Tonight if you're only going to play a twenty second micro-snatch, then fade it null? Why risk conjuring up an audience comparison with the above sequence from Miami Vice if you're not going to do anything new or subversive with the piece?

Miami Vice moves entirely on image and a sonic thematic resonance. Phil Collins swallows this sequence, creating a protracted doom mood as the two leads drive towards an idea of extinction. Image and sound are combined to create a profound sense of desperation. Ashes to Ashes used the cue for a similar moment - the protagonist Alex risking her own life to discover the nature of her superior officer / love interest - but only spliced it in for a fleeting flourish then your standard fade down for dialoguing. It's anti-cinematic, and arguably anti-organic. It mugs audience attention away from a moment, creating a dramatic dead space where viewers internally remark about how much they enjoy the 'drum bit'. No mood is established, other than perhaps a kind of dreary nostalgia. At its worst, this kind of slight juxtaposition recalls the assembly of winsome holiday shows where a bored editor fades in something aurally peculiar as a kind of meta-wink to anyone paying attention. Yuck.

Bad Dog

Tease shill for IO Interactive's Kane & Lynch sequel. First game implied a playable Michael Mann flick, delivering instead a stodgy re-start shooter that asked for flamboyance, whilst stranding the user with stealth-health and a contrary cover system. We shan't even mention IO's utter failure to tap into Mann's particular brand of rootless masculinity. Poor show! For this follow-up, IO are promising little more than fleeing naked men being savaged by attack dogs. Now that's an achievable remit!

Miami Vice

Blue, grainy, glamour - Michael Mann's further meditation on the mechanics of extra-legality. Miami Vice feels like the culmination of everything Mann's oeuvre has promised: a policer stripped of all surplus exposition - even dialogue - to become pure, cold, calculated case. Simultaneously a post 80s high-tech metal-man action film, and a piece about meditative, clinging, spy people with dead end / self-immolation arcs.

Familiarity with the Cop vs Crims narratives is mandatory; Mann chooses to focus his attentions entirely elsewhere - the leads discuss nothing and understand each other through glances and invisible nod signals. Mann refuses any notion of a safe big budget action update, and instead delivers a head-ringing thought film about lies and self-alienation in pursuit of law process. Throughout, sweaty, hand-held (immediate) violence seems imminent. Miami Vice is almost a bubbling sci-fi identity crisis - the twin spectres of 80s CIA foreign policy and hidden (nuclear?) aggression loom large over it.