Reframe: The Career of Michael Mann

The history of Michael Mann as a film director is a rather curious one. Revered among his peers, a constant touchpoint for young filmmakers (see Emily the Criminal, and How to Blow Up a Pipeline for examples), feted by critics, and often the maker of well-seen (and loved) movies by the general public, there’s still this nagging feeling that Mann has never gotten his due from one corner of recognition: The Oscars.

While no one would accuse Mann of being prolific (he’s directed just 12 films in 43 years), those 12 films—as remarkable as many of them are—have received a spare total of 12 nominations, and 7 of those came from The Insider alone. Of those 12 nominations, Mann has only scored three for himself (producer, director, and screenplay for The Insider—he also has one nomination for producing Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator). 

If those numbers strike you as surprising (perhaps even astonishing), well, me too. Like any filmmaker, Mann’s output has some variance in quality, but overall, his consistency has been remarkable to everyone who loves movies…except to the Academy. As I go through film by film, assessing the strengths of each and where there were “misses” by Oscar voters, I think it’s important to note beforehand that many of Mann’s films seem to be late bloomers that are appreciated more in retrospect than in their current day. I think you’ll see that theme recur throughout. 

A little housekeeping before we begin. As a friend of mine and I like to say, if you are going to argue that someone deserved an Oscar nomination that they did not receive, you have to say who they should have replaced. In the major categories of Best Picture, Director, all acting categories, and screenplay, I will do exactly that. I will also break them down into should have beens and could have beens. And finally, do remember that the Academy only nominated five films a year for Best Picture until 2009, when the organization expanded to ten.

Alright. Shall we begin?

Thief (1981) – 0 Oscar nominations 

One of the most assured directorial debuts in the history of film. Mann’s crime thriller about a master thief in Chicago is such a remarkable first film, that it’s hard not to think that Mann was a “man in full” upon arrival. Mann makes great use of the windy city’s locations—the grit all but rises off the streets, and Lake Michigan is well represented. The technical virtuoso of Mann is never in dispute, but in Thief, we see the director’s template take shape. His films are largely about driven men in extreme circumstances. In this case, we have James Caan as the thief in question. As a lead, Caan was never better than he was here (although I will accept arguments from those who would forward The Gambler).

Caan is as hard as they come in Thief as Frank, a career criminal looking to make one last big score and then go away forever (much like DeNiro’s Neil McCauley in HEAT). He’s tipped to this opportunity by Leo, a seemingly benevolent benefactor played by Robert Prosky (incredibly good in what was the then 50-year-old actor’s first role on film), who then pulls the rug on Caan’s Frank by withholding money from the take to keep Frank working for him. Leo sees Frank as a cash cow, one that he will keep milking until dry. In between their meeting and the heist (which is shown in extraordinary detail, without the flask of typical heist films—this is blue collar thievery), Frank meets Jessie (a terrific Tuesday Weld). In one of the most fitfully amusing (even uproarious) first dates ever shown on film, Frank lets Jessie know he doesn’t have time for a long courtship. His ship is coming in and Jessie has to decide whether to get on or not. Again, on date one. At one point as the two spar (with Weld giving as good as she’s getting), Frank shouts about getting on “with this big fucking romance” that he needs to switch into overdrive. Their connection is actually a less subtle version of the relationship that plays out between DeNiro’s McCauley and the object of his affection, Amy Brenneman’s Edie in HEAT (prepare yourself, there will be many references to Mann’s seminal LA crime thriller along the way). Time is the enemy for both Frank and Neil. And in the end, they both will make the decision to walk away from the life that they dreamed of (“in five minutes flat”) because they aren’t just criminals, they are survivors. When their house catches on fire, they don’t throw water on it. They let it burn, and they move on.

What makes Thief more than the typical “last big score” kind of movie is in the details. The way Frank creates a collage of what he would like his life to one day be—close friends, warm weather, and a family. He shares this patched together group of images with Jessie. And that’s when she begins to soften. She asks about the older man in the collage. That’s Frank’s friend and mentor Okla (played by Willie Nelson in a perfectly pitched cameo). There’s an open space in the connected photos. Frank tells her that’s where she goes. It really shouldn’t work, but in the moment, we see these two middle-aged people and the look in their eyes tells us that they know this may be the last shot that either of them will have at happiness. That’s the heart of Thief: the plan for a better life that is all but in your grasp, and then god laughs. I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the fluidity of the film’s camerawork, the tough as nails screenplay, the sequence where Mann makes a used car lot look like it was strung with Christmas lights. And then there is the sense of foreboding (often provided by the brilliant score by Tangerine Dream) that isn’t just felt, you can practically smell the fumes. We are all running out of time. We are not going to make it. We only think we are, and that moment of hope is both brief and cruel. 

What Oscar missed:

The should have beens:

Best Picture – Thief over Winner Chariots of Fire, On Golden Pond

Best Director – Michael Mann over Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire), Mark Rydell (On Golden Pond)

Best Adapted Screenplay – Michael Mann over Jay Presson Allen and Sidney Lumet for Prince of the City, and Harold Pinter for The French Lieutenant’s Woman 

Best Actor – James Caan over Henry Fonda (On Golden Pond), Dudley Moore (Arthur), Paul Newman (Absence of Malice)

Best Supporting Actor – Robert Prosky over John Gielgud (Arthur), James Coco (Only When I Laugh)

Best Supporting Actress – Tuesday Weld over Melinda Dillon (Absence of Malice), Jane Fonda (On Golden Pond), Joan Hackett (Only When I Laugh)

Best Score – Tangerine Dream over everything

Could have Beens:

Best Editing – Dov Hoenig

Best Cinematography – Donald Thorin

Best Sound – Larry Carow, David Cohn, and Samuel Crutcher

One last note on Thief: While the Academy ignored the film entirely, “The Stinkers” (similar to the sadly still operational and execrable “Razzies”) gave the film six nods. The mind reels. 

The Keep (1983) – 0 Oscar nominations

The Keep, AKA: the Michael Mann movie no one ever talks about—including Michael Mann. If you’ve seen the film, which takes place in Romania during the Nazi occupation, you probably reached the credits with a great deal of confusion. Starring Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen, and Alberta Watson, The Keep gives off a spectral beauty, and the score by Tangerine Dream lays on the existential dread of a horror film about Nazis unleashing forces nearly as evil as they are. When Mann turned in his original cut, the film ran for three and a half hours. The film was contractually obligated to come in at no more than two hours. The studio took control of the picture, cut it to 120, and then stood aghast as their cut / butchering received a brutal response from test audiences. In its finite wisdom, Paramount Studios response was to chop the movie even further, resulting in an incomprehensible 96 minute experience. One must believe that somewhere out there, Mann’s edit still exists. Until then, it’s almost impossible to evaluate the film on qualitative standards. 

What Oscar Missed:

Let’s not.

One last note on The Keep: Mann was asked if he thought the film would get a re-release, but showed no interest. In fact, as he told a fan in 2016, “That one’s going to stay in its …” My assumption is he was about to say “can,” and while we can hope for a complete Keep, the creator himself has no appetite for its resurrection. 

Manhunter (1986) – 0 Nominations

Somewhat paradoxically, for a director known mostly for film, Mann found his first taste of widespread success on TV with Miami Vice in 1984. Produced by Mann under his own banner (Michael Mann Productions) Miami Vice was an immediate sensation on the small screen when it debuted on NBC (the show actually became known for keeping people home on Friday nights when it aired). The first season was a huge upgrade over most of the cop shows that preceded it. Following seasons deteriorated in quality, but the commonly used pejorative “MTV Cops” that was often applied to the series was shallow and reductive. Vice may have had only one classic season, but it is one of the few shows that truly changed television with its look, style, and subject matter (the drug trade). 

Miami Vice should have been a springboard for Mann’s adaptation of Thomas Harris’ first novel featuring Hannibal Lecter: Red Dragon. Much of Manhunter (I’ll get to the issues with that title in just a moment), shared much of the visual aesthetic of Miami Vice, with the added benefit of being darker and grittier than television censors for the major networks would allow. However, when it came to production issues, Manhunter was almost as haunted as The Keep. The film’s in/famous producer, Dino De Laurentiis, didn’t understand the significance of the source material (Red Dragon was a bestseller), and decided to change the name to the incredibly generic Manhunter. Michael Cimino’s Year of the Dragon had just bombed at the box office the year before, and De Laurentiis didn’t want any name association attached to a film that came out a full year earlier. Dino also, I shit thee not, thought audiences might confuse the film with a Kung-fu movie. I guess Dino wasn’t aware that Bruce Lee was dead, and would be making no more “Dragon” movies.

In doing so, De Laurentiis cut off a built-in audience of readers, and due to his lack of enthusiasm for the film, Manhunter was poorly marketed, and (surprisingly upon reflection) received modest reviews at the time. All of this is a terrible shame, because Manhunter is one incredibly tense thriller that, in Lector film lore, answers only to Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (NBC’s far too short-lived Hannibal is also more than worthy of Harris’ characters). Brian Cox (yes, the Brian Cox of Succession fame) plays Lector much differently than Anthony Hopkins did in the three films he played Hannibal “the Cannibal.” Cox’s Lector is every bit as intelligent and devious as Hopkins’ but far less aristocratic and eccentric. The sort of bluntness that Cox presents Lector with is particularly chilling when he explains to Detective Will Graham (a fantastic William L. Petersen—yes, the guy who went on to CSI fame) how god is the greatest killer of them all. Tom Noonan is essentially the “Jame Gumb” character of Red Dragon—the killer Lector is “helping” the FBI chase down—and he is absolutely terrifying. Huge in size, frighteningly pedestrian (even dull) in affect, but also just human enough not to be a stock serial killer,  Noonan’s towering presence lingers over the film even when he’s not on screen.

Sadly, while Manhunter has been reevaluated over the years and is now seen as at least a near-classic of the serial killer genre, that fresh (and accurate) assessment did the film no good at the time of its release. Manhunter came and went quickly in August of 1986, and waited many years to be discovered. 

What Oscar Missed:

Should have Beens:

Best Actor – Actor William L. Petersen over Dexter Gordon ‘Round Midnight

Best Supporting Actor – Actor Brian Cox over Denholm Elliot, A Room With A View

Could Have Beens:

Best Picture – Films that Manhunter could have beat out for a nomination: The Mission

Best Director – Director who Michael Mann could have beat out for a nomination: Roland Joffe, The Mission

Best Adapted Screenplay – Screenplay Manhunter could have beat out for a nomination: Crimes of the Heart

Best Cinematography 

Best Production Design

Best Editing

A final note on Manhunter: William L. Petersen could not have been any more snake-bitten at the beginning of his film career. His previous film, William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in LA (from 1985) also bombed. Meaning Petersen’s first two films as a lead were directed by masters of their craft, but both failed miserably at the turnstiles, and would not be upwardly regarded for decades. I suppose no one should weep for Petersen (I imagine those CSI checks had lots of zeros on them), but it’s hard not to wonder what kind of resume he might have had were Friedkin and Mann’s films properly appreciated in their time. 

The Last of the Mohicans (1992) – 1 Nomination 

After having his previous two films bombed (and his first do little more than break even), Mann took a six-year gap following the commercial failure of Manhunter before returning to the big screen with his adaptation of the classic James Fenimore Cooper novel “The Last of the Mohicans.” On paper, a dramatization of a classic novel/period piece with Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead would seem like easy money if you were playing Oscar poker. That was not the case. Despite receiving sterling reviews and being a solid hit at the multiplex, The Last of the Mohicans received just a single nomination for Best Sound (which it won). Of all the films that Mann has made in his career, only one other mystifies me more in terms of its lack of support from the Academy (that’s a tease). Everything about The Last of the Mohicans feels like Oscar-bait: the source material, the historical setting  (1757 North America during the French and Indian War), the cast, and, most importantly, the high-caliber result. 

So, what happened? Well, to be fair, the competition in 1992 was not weak. You had Clint Eastwood’s (arguably) best film Unforgiven, Howard’s End (a Merchant/Ivory high point), the marketing sensation of The Crying Game (also a great film, just to be clear), and A Few Good Men, with its iconic Cruise vs. Jack showdown. But you also had Scent of a Woman, an overlong, overly sentimental film, with an over-the-top (if ridiculously entertaining) lead performance by Al Pacino. Among the five films nominated, I would only consider Unforgiven and The Crying Game to be on the same level as Mann’s Mohicans, but I can understand the populist appeal of A Few Good Men, and Howard’s End is peak-level stuffy, internalized British drama. And I can completely accept the desire of the Academy to award Pacino a long overdue gold statue. But how in the hell does Scent of a Woman match up to The Last of the Mohicans? And furthermore, how does The Last of the Mohicans get overlooked in every other category besides sound? 

Hell, not only was The Last of the Mohicans brilliant and bracing entertainment, it is chock-full of great performances, technical quality, and a red-hot romance between Lewis’ Hawkeye (a white man adopted by a Mohican tribe as a boy) and the stunning, gasp-inducing visage of Madeleine Stowe, who plays Cora, the daughter of a British general. While the hot and heavy may not have been very revealing, when Hawkeye and Cora look at each other on screen, you would swear their eyes were heat-seeking missiles searching only for each other. The film also masterfully tells this classic adventure story in a decidedly thoughtful way. Magua (played by the extraordinary Wes Studi) is not a standard “Indian villain” like we had seen in so many Westerns. Yes, Magua is vicious, but his reasons for hating the “white hair” comes from a place of retribution, it is not reflexive. Another way of putting it is to say that while Magua may have been “bad,” he had reasons. 

As well, when the face-off comes between Magua and his more noble opposition, it does not come in the form of Hawkeye vs. Magua, but rather as Magua vs. Chingachgook (Hawkeye’s adoptive father played by the Native American activist Russell Means). It’s not hard to picture another film making Hawkeye the classic “white savior,” regardless of Cooper’s text. Mann chose otherwise, and in doing so made the film even deeper and more resonant. Along with every other fiercely wondrous detail about this film, one must also include the greatest suicide scene ever captured on film. A character is given a choice: go with Magua and be made into a slave, a bartering chip, or much worse, or, just let your body fall off the side of a cliff. While both options are terribly dire, the only one where the young woman in question has any agency is the decision to die—on her own terms. Mann’s camera, sans any help from dialogue, captures the moment between Magua and the young woman with such perfection, it’s as if you could read their minds. That’s not film, that’s alchemy.

What Oscar Missed:

Should Have Beens:

Best Picture:  The Last of the Mohicans over A Few Good Men, Scent of a Woman

Best Director: Michael Mann over Martin Brest, Scent of a Woman, James Ivory, Howard’s End, Robert Altman, The Player

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Last of the Mohicans over Enchanted April, A River Runs Through It, Scent of a Woman

Best Actor – Lewis over winner Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman, Robert Downey Jr., Chaplin

Best Actress – Stowe over Michelle Pfeiffer, Love Field, Catherine Deneuve, Indochine, Susan Sarandon, Lorenzo’s Oil, Mary McDonnell, Passion Fish

Best Supporting Actor – Studi over David Paymer, Mr. Saturday Night

Best Supporting Actress – Jodhi May over Joan Plowright, Enchanted April

Best Cinematography 

Best Editing

Best Production Design

Best Costume Design

Best Score 

Best Song – “I Will Find You” by Clannad

Final note on The Last of the Mohicans: As is Lewis’ wont, to prepare for filming, the actor worked with a fitness trainer five days a week for six(!) months to achieve the physicality of Hawkeye. As if that weren’t enough, he also strolled into the North Carolina wilderness and lived off the land for a month before shooting. Let it never be said Lewis put any less effort into playing an action-oriented character than he did in any other role he ever played. 

HEAT (1995) – 0 Nominations

So, if you thought The Last of the Mohicans was a slam dunk Oscar contender that got little appreciation from the Academy, let’s now talk about HEAT. You might think coming off a grand and undervalued film like Mohicans that the Academy would look to make up for that oversight by awarding an even more ambitious project like a nearly three-hour crime drama starring the two greatest actors of their generation (Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro), but you’d be wrong. There’s a joke I like to make about HEAT—gallows humor, really. Maybe it’s not even a joke, but it does feel funny to say that Michael Mann’s HEAT got the same number of Oscar nominations as Burt Reynolds’ Heat, which is to say zero. If you don’t remember the Reynolds film from 1986, well, neither does anyone else. Reynolds’ movie was also a crime drama (unrelated in storyline) made when Burt’s star was falling, and, having seen it, I can tell you, it’s pretty awful. 

Mann’s HEAT on the other hand is the greatest cops and robbers movie ever made. It is ingeniously structured as a mano y mano between Pacino’s detective Vincent Hanna and DeNiro’s expert thief Neil McCauley. However, over the film’s lengthy (but never slow) run time, Mann works in numerous characters with recognizable faces (Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Dennis Haysbert, Natalie Portman, I could go on for days…) and significant subplots. It’s absolutely insane to try to pack in as many additional characters as Mann did in HEAT, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t pull it off in full. The film is so assured and extraordinary that the fact that Pacino and DeNiro share just two scenes (and only one of those has extended dialogue) ends up feeling like an asset, not a liability. All you need is that final shot of two men who might have been friends in another life (they have an abiding respect for each other’s professionalism, if not their opposing professions), holding hands as one leaves the world as planes at the LAX depart overhead, with the strains of Moby’s “God Moving Over the Face of the Waters” playing as the film cuts to black. The ending of HEAT is impossibly satisfying—like a miracle even. Mann packs so much into this movie, with all the storylines swirling around the two leads that should have made the film crumble before you on screen, and yet somehow, this master of action and narrative keeps every plate spinning—dropping nary a one. HEAT is a breathtaking one. Oddly, at the time of its release, many of the reviews were respectable to not much more than that. Perhaps critics expected more time with the two legendary leads training lines, but it’s that restraint that makes the moments that do have together stand out even more. The diner scene between the two men is an absolute low-key masterpiece of two aging tigers sizing each other up, moving past insinuation, to direct talk. Hell, you could have made a three hour My Dinner With Andre kind of film with these two, and that would have been brilliant. But Mann had larger designs. He chose to tell a kaleidoscopic tale of Los Angeles that he perfectly embedded into the crime thriller genre. I mentioned that many critics of the film were little more than polite to HEAT at the time (the film is now roundly seen as a drop-dead classic), but there was one who got it right: Mike Clark from USA Today, who called the film, “The Seven Samurai” of police films. God damn, I wish I had said that. 

What Oscar Missed:

Best Picture – HEAT over everything: Braveheart (winner), Apollo 13, Il Postino, Babe, Sense and Sensibility

Best Director – Mann over everyone: Mel Gibson Braveheart (winner), Ron Howard Apollo 13, Michael Radford Il Postino, Mike Figgis Leaving Las Vegas, Tim Robbins Dead Man Walking 

Best Adapted Screenplay – HEAT over everything: Sense and Sensibility (Winner), Apollo 13, Babe, Leaving Las Vegas, II Postino

Best Actor – Pacino & DeNiro over Richard Dreyfuss Mr. Holland’s Opus, Massimo Troisi, Il Postino

Best Supporting Actor – Val Kilmer & Tom Sizemore over James Cromwell, Babe, Ed Harris, Apollo 13, Brad Pitt, 12 Monkeys

Best Supporting Actress – Ashley Judd, Diane Venora, & Amy Brenneman over Mira Sorvino Mighty Aphrodite (winner), Kathleen Quinlan Apollo 13, Mare Winningham, Georgia

Best Cinematography

Best Editing

Best Production Design

Best Score

Best Sound

I know that’s a lot, but I’m being completely serious: all of these Academy rejections are worthy.

Final Note on HEAT: The film is actually a much grander version of a TV film that Mann made in 1989 called LA Takedown. I recall the film as a stylish endeavor at the time, but not even for a second did it occur to me while watching HEAT in 1995 that the two films had any relationship. LA Takedown may have the same basic storyline and many of the same characters, but it’s like comparing a quick sketch to the Mona Lisa—they are not in the same league. 

Final Final Note on HEAT: I am loosely estimating that I have watched this film at least two hundred times. Whatever film is the second position of my most viewed isn’t within shouting distance. I think HEAT is the greatest film ever made. Sincerely. 

The Insider (1999) – 7 Nominations

Mann’s The Insider is that one film he made while Oscar voters were both alert and sentient. In telling the story of real-life big tobacco whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe at his very best), Mann’s prestige content and exemplary delivery finally found traction with The Academy. Perhaps paradoxically, the film was not well seen in theaters. Despite Crowe being at his career peak, and Al Pacino (as the 60 Minutes producer who brings Wigand’s concerns to light) still hot and in the pocket, The Insider just never gained traction at the box office. Never mind though, because it is one incredibly intense portrait of two men fighting the system to do nothing more than tell the truth. Mann ratchets up the drama of their mission that the two start to feel like the last two honest men on earth. Throw in a truly astounding performance by Christopher Plummer as an indecisive Mike Wallace, and you have one of Mann’s very best films from a pure acting standpoint. The riches on display are embarrassing. Bright lights like Gina Gershon, Philip Baker Hall, Michael Gambon, Rip Torn, Lindsay Crouse, Diane Venora, Stephen Tobolowski, Colm Feore, and especially the fire-breathing Bruce McGill (as an attorney who crushes Wings Hauser into dust during a courtroom scene), all show up for moments that range from slight to substantial, and all of them add a feeling of authenticity to this riveting real-life story. 

The Insider is about the failure of corporations to tell the truth and news organizations (also corporations) to illuminate the truth. A tremendous amount of The Insider is largely just people standing around and talking, but the weight of the conversation (whether big tobacco is knowingly poisoning and addicting its patrons) is pertinent, braving, and heavy. 

While you will never catch me saying that The Insider is a better movie than HEAT, what you also won’t do is catch me arguing with anyone who says that The Insider is Mann’s best movie. Because close enough.

What Oscar didn’t miss:

Best Picture

Best Actor – Crowe

Best Director – Mann

Best Adapted Screenplay – Mann & Eric Roth

Best cinematography 

Best sound 

Best editing 

What Oscar did miss:

Giving Best Picture to American Beauty over The Insider

Giving Best Director to Sam Mendes American Beauty over Mann

Giving Best Actor to Kevin Spacey American Beauty over Russell Crowe

Nominating Sean Penn for Sweet and Lowdown over Al Pacino for Best Actor

Nominating Michael Caine (winner) for Cider House Rules and Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile over Christopher Plummer for Best Supporting Actor

Giving Best Adapted Screenplay to The Cider House Rules over The Insider

Best Score

And again, if you could nominate an actor for a single scene, Bruce McGill’s fire breathing attorney would be in the money, hands down

Last note on The Insider: Just how high was Crowe’s peak at the time? Starting with The Insider,   Crowe was nominated for best actor in three consecutive years, with nods following in 2001 for Gladiator, and then A Beautiful Mind in 2002–making him just one of eight men in the history of the award to do so. Crowe won for Gladiator (and he’s terrific in it), but Jeffrey Wigand is his finest hour. 

Ali (2001) – 2 Nominations

There may be no life more complicated to cover than that of Muhammad Ali. He was a counter culture hero, an iconoclast, a defiantly anti-Vietnam protestor who nearly ruined his career over his principled stance against the war, a serial philanderer, a man who was kind to children but often brutal to his opponents, a member of the Nation of Islam (a radical group to many), who also employed Jews and gentiles within his core group of supporters. The man is a complete conundrum, with a life so massive that no film could ever do it justice. Wisely, instead of trying to do a cradle to the grave biopic, Mann instead focuses on the ten-year period where Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali, lost three years of his prime after being stripped of his heavyweight championship status due to being a conscientious objector, and climaxes with his upset victory over Big George Foreman in Africa. 

Even so, covering any ten years of the life of Muhammad Ali is a burdensome task. There’s just so much “there” there. At one time, Ali was the most famous person in the world. Known equally in the smallest village of third world countries to the heights of power in America and beyond. 

Ali did only respectable box office and reviews, while largely positive, were not effusive. I suspect that filmgoers and critics alike wanted a more traditional inspirational film on the subject of Muhammad Ali. The funny thing is they got the inspiration, just not the conventional. Mann’s film is both lyrical and tough. When Ali defeats Foreman in Zaire, you are so aware of the hard won struggle to achieve that victory that it might feel muted in its celebration. Maybe that’s why the film was received respectfully at the time and not effusively.

Whatever minor flaws Ali may have (mostly having so much to cover in so little time—even the film’s 165 minute length feels short of its subject), compensations abound. Will Smith is typically a lightweight actor who usually coasts on charm, but here, with Mann’s stewardship, he is magnificent, and greatly deserving of his Best Actor nomination. Jon Voight makes for a fine Howard Cosell, and his nomination is fairly earned as well. Beyond that, there is Jamie Foxx (terrific as Ali’s hype man Bundini Brown), and, as per usual, phenomenal actors delivering in spades no matter how small the part (Mykelti Williamson as Don King, Nona Gaye as one of Ali’s long suffering wives, Giancarlo Esposito as Ali’s Christian father, and Ron Silver as Angelo Dundee). More than anything, there is a measure of honor to go with all of Mann’s typical technical superiority and his gift for getting the best from his actors. Ali is the version of an extraordinary man’s life that doesn’t play it safe, that shows the flaws of the man while also correctly measuring his significance. In short, Ali the film recognizes the complexity of its subject and does not dumb it down for the masses. It’s a brave film, and one that gets better with each viewing.

What Oscar didn’t miss:

Best Actor: Will Smith

Best Supporting Actor: Jon Voight

What Oscar missed:

Could have been:

Best Picture over Moulin Rouge!

Best Director over Ron Howard (winner) A Beautiful Mind

Best Cinematography 

Best Editing

Best Sound

Best Production Design

Best Supporting Actor: Jamie Foxx over Ethan Hawke Training Day

Final Note on Ali: In an obsessive attempt to make Will Smith look and sound like the real thing, the production team went beyond voice lessons and physical training, they actually pinned back Smith’s saucer-sized ears.

Collateral (2004) – 2 Oscar Nominations

After The Insider and Ali, Mann returned to the streets of Los Angeles with his stellar hit man drama Collateral. Compared to HEAT, the premise of the film is fairly simple and the cast-size is practically Waiting for Godot. Most of the film is Tom Cruise’s hit man (and before I forget, Collateral’s use of gray makes you think of the color in a new context, much like HEAT did with blue) forcing Jamie Foxx’s yellow cab driver to transport him from destination to destination. All of which result in dead bodies. 

Cruise often gets a lot of flack for just flashing his smile and playing himself (as if understanding your skillset is a deficit), but here, Cruise plays the darkest character of his career (Magnolia’s Frank T.J. Mackey aside). I don’t know whose decision it was to make Cruise’s hair match his silvery suit, but that person deserves a statue of some sort. Along with Cruise’s piercing blue eyes, the suit and the hair reflect a driven sociopath with a wicked sense of humor and a unique understanding of the operations of the universe. 

Cruise’s costuming, hair coloring, and his willingness to harden those normally cheerful eyes results in one of Cruise’s finest performances. Somehow, he makes his suit look like a coat of armor. 

As the unluckiest cab driver in the world, Jamie Foxx holds his own with Cruise, although Foxx being chosen for a Best Supporting actor nom (he’s really the lead) and Cruise being looked over entirely does boggle the mind. 

The interplay between the two: Cruise’s calm, efficient killer, and Foxx’s underachieving cabbie is riveting. You can see Foxx trying to outthink Cruise and discovering over and over again that he is out of his depth. Foxx’s cabbie’s survival is based more on luck than it is courage and ingenuity (not that he lacks in the latter two qualities). 

The entirety of Collateral takes place over just a few late night hours: after sunset, and before sunrise. But in that tight frame, Mann produces his most relentlessly efficient and commercial film. Aside from Mann’s usual technical bravura, a plethora of high class actors turn up in small but significant roles (another Mann staple). Thesps like Mark Ruffalo, Peter Berg, Jada Pinkett-Smith (in her career best role), Javier Bardem, all have a moment (or two) in the sun. Hell, Jason Statham shows up right at the beginning of the film as a wordless delivery man. The cup of Collateral truly runneth over. 

The film was well-reviewed at the time, and did solid (if unspectacular) business, and the Academy did see fit to give Foxx an Oscar nod and also recognized the film’s crystalline editing. However, that was as far as voters went for one of Mann’s very best films. Perhaps it was undervalued as an “action film,” but a film with this level of writing, acting, and directing, surely should have been seen as transcending genre. 

At any rate, Collateral may not be Mann’s best film (although a fair argument can be made), it’s likely his most efficient and entertaining. While Oscar may deserve some credit for not completely ignoring the film, they surely came up short of the recognition scale. 

What Oscar Didn’t Miss:

Best Supporting Actor: Jamie Foxx (although, again, he should have been competing as a lead)

Best Editing

What Oscar Missed:

Best Picture – Over The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby (winner), and Ray

Best Director – Mann over Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby), Martin Scorsese (The Aviator), Taylor Hackford (Ray), Mike Leigh (Vera Drake)

Best Original Screenplay – Stuart Beattie over The Aviator, Hotel Rwanda, and Vera Drake

Best Supporting Actor – Tom Cruise over everyone: Alan Alda (The Aviator), Jamie Foxx (Collateral—he’s the lead for chrissakes), Clive Owen (Closer), Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby—winner), Thomas Haden Church (Sideways)

Best Production Design

Best Cinematography 

Best Sound

Final Note on Collateral: The song that plays in Foxx’s cab, “The Hands of Time” when he picks up Pinkett at the beginning of the film is referred to as an old school R&B classic by Pinkett. In fact, the song is actually a 2000 collaboration between classic folk singer Richie Havens and the EDM duo Groove Armada. The song never made the Billboard charts, but it sure as hell sounds like the classic ‘70s style cut Pinkett proclaims it to be. 

Miami Vice (2006) 0 Oscar Nominations

No film in the Michael Mann oeuvre was treated more poorly upon release than his film remake of his hit TV show Miami Vice. Part of the issue is probably due to moviegoers expecting a fun, nostalgic night out at the movies. But the truth is, while Mann’s films are visceral,  engaging, and highly entertaining, they aren’t really fun. At least not in the cheapest sense. And while you can forgive viewers (to a degree) the expectation of nostalgia, Michael Mann does not do nostalgia. 

The film version of Miami Vice is a straight up, hard-knuckled crime film about two cops (Colin Farrell as Sonny Crockett and Jamie Foxx as Ricardo Tubbs) going dangerously and deeply undercover to infiltrate a South American crime lord. For all the good things one can and should say about the TV series, the film makes the show look like a Disney cartoon. 

The plot is complex and the risk level to the characters is constant. Miami Vice is not a movie looking to take you down a comfortable stroll down memory lane in an ‘80s sports car. In fact, branding and character names aside, you could easily argue that the film should have been called something else and the actors given different names. 

While the film opened to solid box office that first weekend, it dropped off quickly thereafter and many critics did the film no service by improperly contextualizing the film or showing a lack of appreciation for its plentiful assets. Mann somehow makes Miami bright and grim at the same time. The energy of the film is propulsive, and the cast is absolutely ridiculous. 

Vice was a troubled shoot though. Farrell’s run as Hollywood’s “it boy” was coming to a close, and some less than savory personal behavior outside of his work was beginning to get more attention than his performances. And it must be said, Farrell is a simmering powder keg in this film. He’s a little beefier, and he broods like nobody’s business during most of the film. However, his romance with the drug kingpin’s (a terrifying Luis Tosar) right hand woman (the lustrous Gong Li) is not only flaming hot, but deeply moving. At the end of the film as Farrell and Li are forced to say their goodbyes when all has come to light with sorrow in their eyes as her small boat winds away from the shore of a safe house, the longing isn’t just palpable, it’s devastating. 

Another on-set issue that impacted the filming of the movie (if in no obvious way affecting the result) was a fallout suffered between Foxx and Mann. After working together on two previous occasions (Ali and Collateral), the two men never stepped foot on the same set again. And boy, that’s a shame, because while Vice may ever so slightly be more of Farrell’s movie than Foxx’s, his Ricardo Tubbs gets plenty to do, and Foxx does it all well. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the supporting performances here. Barry Shabaka Henley is fabulous as the lieutenant overseeing the case. Naomi’s Harris and Elizabeth Rodriguez are so good as part of the vice crew, you’d love to have seen a spin-off buddy cop movie starring the two. And finally, the wonderful character actor John Ortiz as the kingpin’s #3 (but looking hard to move up to #2) is positively astonishing as a character who can be very charming on the surface, but that veil hides just beneath it a Machiavellian monster. 

Despite being considered a near total misfire at the time, over the last 18 years, the opinion worm has decidedly turned on Mann’s Miami Vice reboot. Film Stage named it the best action film of the 21st century, and Vulture’s esteemed in-house critic Bilge Ebiri wrote a fabulous reassessment in 2021 called Miami Vice’s Journey From Misfire to Masterpiece. And that’s what the film Miami Vice is: a masterpiece. 

What Oscar Missed:

Best Picture: Over Little Miss Sunshine

Best Director: Mann over Stephen Frears (The Queen)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Over Borat

Should have beens:

Best Actor: Colin Farrell over Will Smith (The Pursuit of Happyness)

Best Supporting Actor: Jamie Foxx and John Ruiz over Djimon Honsou (Blood Diamond), Mark Wahlberg (The Departed)

Best Supporting Actress: Gong Li over Jennifer Hudson (winner – Dreamgirls), Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine)

Best Cinematography

Best Editing

Best Sound

Best Production Design

One final note on Miami Vice: Elizabeth Rodriguez as Vice cop Gina Calabrese may not have a ton of dialogue in the film, but Mann certainly gave her the most badass line in the film. As a white power hoodlum holds a bomb switch in one hand and Naomi’s Harris’s character in the other, he tells Calabrese that she can’t shoot him because if she does, his thumb will press the trigger and they will all go up in smoke. 

Calabrese’s response: “No. That’s not what happens. What happens is I will put a round precisely through your medulla oblongata which is located at the base of your brain straight through a point mid-distance between your upper lip and the bottom of your nose and you will be dead from the neck down. Your finger won’t even twitch. Do you believe that?”

He should have believed her. 

Public Enemies (2009) 0 Oscar Nominations

Set in the mid 1930s, Public Enemies tells the true story of bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp in his last great performance) and Melvin Purvis (a tightly wound Christian Bale), the G-Man assigned to bring Dillinger in dead or alive. Both actors are terrific. Depp, who I have often found too precious before his career hit the skids, finds just the right balance of colorful and authentic. I’ve read some reviews that describe his performance as too “iconic” and that he doesn’t get under Dillinger’s skin. Complete nonsense. At first, Depp’s portrayal does lean on his natural charisma heavily. But as the film goes on and his relationship with Billie Frechette (played luminously by french actress Marion Cotillard) deepens so does his performance. The chemistry between the two is instant and electric. Dillinger’s breakneck courtship of coat check girl Frechette could only be pulled off if you believe them in full, and the instant their eyes lock, you are sold. Dillinger’s character has no time to waste and Frechette is tired of wasting time. So when he pulls her from behind the coat check counter and says come with me, you can see why she only allows herself a passing second thought.

Bale’s assignment playing Purvis is trickier. It’s an old adage in movies that playing the villain is more fun than playing the hero. That’s true here as well. Depp plays a criminal who has no sense boundaries whereas Bale is so  constricted by his character’s observance of the law (the two go about their roles in the exact opposite manner that DeNiro and Pacino do in HEAT). Still Bale shines. All subtlety on the surface but seething with righteousness underneath, Bale finds the rigidity in his character but also hints at the humanity that lies behind Purvis’ eyes. Follow his face closely as he carries Cotillard, after she takes a beating from another officer and soils herself, to the bathroom to clean her up. Note the effort on his face to withhold any expression of horror, but it’s there behind the eyes. This is high class acting. 

To that point, how many actors are as generous as Bale? Here’s a guy who can clearly go broad and charismatic when he wants to (American Psycho, The Prestige, Rescue Dawn, The Fighter), but is often content to let other actors shine while he holds the film steady. Look at The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger, or 3:10 To Yuma and Russell Crowe. Never do you feel that Bale is competing with them. Instead you find that he is providing them the space they need to stretch as far as they want and therefore provide the film the necessary balance.

Now some critics decried the fact that the film doesn’t explore Dillinger’s backstory. As if a ponderous three hour connect-the-dots style biopic would serve the subject. No, instead what Michael Mann does is focus on the most dramatic portion of Dillinger’s life. And doesn’t that make sense? In one short bit of dialogue Dillinger tells Frechette about the early death of his mother and his violent upbringing by his father. He then proceeds to tell her all the things he likes in life ending with “…baseball, fast cars and you, what else do you need to know?” And we, like Billie, are along for the ride. As Dillinger says “it doesn’t matter where you’ve been, it only matters where you’re going.” 

Of course, Dillinger didn’t live a long life. Neither did Purvis, and by big budget film standards, neither did Public Enemies. As with many a Mann film, retrospect has become increasingly kind to the film. Me? I think it’s among his finest hours.

What Oscar Missed:

Best Picture (ten nominees for the first time in the Mann era) – Over Avatar, The Blind Side, Inglorious Basterds, and Precious

Best Director: Mann over James Cameron (Avatar), Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious Basterds), Lee Daniels (Precious)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Over Precious

Best Actor: Depp and Bale over Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart – winner), and Morgan Freeman Invictus (in what was really a supporting role)

Best Actress: Cotillard over Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side – winner), Helen Mirren (The Last Station), Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)

Best Supporting Actor: Stephen Lang over Matt Damon (Invictus – really the lead) Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones), and Christopher Plummer (The Last Station)

Best Score

Best Sound

Best Costume

Best Production Design

Best Cinematography 

Best Editing

Blackhat (2015) 0 Nominations

While Michael Mann has made a number of films that you thought might have done better at the box office (Collateral, The Insider, HEAT), he’s only made three true flops: The Keep, Manhunter, and our next movie, Blackhat. A film that I’m sure that many cinephiles are not only unaware of, but unaware that it’s a Michael Mann film. 

Now, to be fair, Blackhat, a film about an imprisoned hacker (Chris Hemsworth) being released from jail to track another hacker who is infiltrating world banks and nuclear reactors, is not at the high end of Mann’s oeuvre. The screenplay is a little confusing upfront, there’s probably a bit too much time in the film spent looking at code on a computer screen, but it’s a more than solid thriller that is the rare film that starts off shaky, but then improves as it goes along. 

It doesn’t hurt that Tang Wei as an agent and Hemsworth’s eventual love interest is completely arresting in every scene. Her and Hemsworth make an impossibly beautiful couple, and the duo get the sort of ending you Colin Farrell and Gong Li deserved in Miami Vice.

Blackhat has plenty of other charms too. Like when the great Viola Davis as an NSA agent takes down an unwilling witness by revealing what she knows about him and what she could do to him, and then closes with the steely line, “Am I being tangible…Gary?” Let’s just say Gary’s expression makes it clear that he understands just how tangible his exposure is. 

There’s also a scene late in the movie where a car bomb goes off, and even though I’ve watched the film 4-5 times, and know that it’s coming, I flinch every damn time. Mann is often thought of as an action director, and while he is certainly great at directing action, it’s the restraint he shows for the bulk of his films that make the action matter. In most action movies, there’s a tendency to have some sort of shoutout or fight scene at a certain cadence. Mann holds back, so that when the action happens, you actually feel it. Why? Because he spends so much time with his characters that when something happens to them, you actually care about more than the adrenaline rush. 

There’s also a fabulous little Easter egg in the film. Blackhat lifts a line from Manhunter. In what are essentially twin scenes, Petersen in Manhunter and Hemsworth in Blackhat figure out the villain’s motivation and utter the same line, “That’s what you’re up to, isn’t it? You son of a bitch.”

Yeah, I know that’s a deep cut, but that’s what all Mann films are: deep cuts. And while Blackhat isn’t peak Mann, it sure as hell is an enjoyable watch. 

Final note on Blackhat: Despite being a serious physical specimen and having some chops to go along with it, Blackhat is further proof that unless Hemsworth is playing Thor, he can’t pack a theater. It’s a hard to solve conundrum, but it carries on unabated.

What Oscar Missed:

To be honest, everyone missed this movie, so I don’t know how hard I can hold it against the Academy that they didn’t recognize Tang Wei in the supporting actress category, or the film in any number of technical categories, (and Viola Davis if they gave Oscars for one scene) but I do a little. If anything, I hold more against the public that didn’t turn out, and the critics who passively dismissed the film. They were wrong.

Ferrari (2023) 0 Nominations

When I heard that Mann was coming back to film after an eight year break from film (he did develop the excellent Tokyo Vice for HBO, and directed the pilot episode) to take on the story of the great open road race car tycoon Enzo Ferrari, I was absolutely thrilled. While I’m not a racing fan, I knew the driving scenes would be electric, and with Adam Driver (the only American in House of Gucci whose Italian accent didn’t sound ridiculous) as Enzo and the great Penelope Cruz as his long suffering (Enzo was prone to stray) wife Laura, I knew Mann would be cooking with gas. And that’s largely true.

Much like with Ali and Public Enemies, Mann smartly focuses on a single period in Enzo’s life (his struggles to keep Ferrari afloat post WW2), but also makes a rare casting mistake regarding a significant subplot that largely sucks the momentum out of the film when playing out on screen. When I suggested that Enzo was a bit randy, I was truly underselling it. He had an entire separate family that he hid from Laura for years—a mistress that he truly loved, and a young son they shared, but Enzo did not recognize publicly (probably out of fear of getting murdered in his sleep by Cruz’s Laura, who is an absolute firestarter). The trouble is, the mistress is played by Shailene Woodley, a talented actor who has given her share of fine performances over the course of her young career, but here, she seems completely miscast. Woodley’s performance is so lacking in dynamism and charm, that it’s impossible to sort out why Enzo cares for her so much. 

Thankfully, while the relationship between Enzo and his hidden family is a significant piece of the film, it’s hardly all of it. Every scene between Driver and Cruz bristles with a mixture of love, hate, lust, and disgust that allows you to put aside the sleepy extramarital scenes. You really have to admire how Driver practically shrugs off Cruz’s fierce contempt, largely underplaying their scenes and letting Cruz go for broke. 

It’s somewhat odd that Cruz has won an Oscar (Best Supporting Actor for Vicky Cristina, Barcelona) and been nominated for Best Actress three times, but is seldom spoken of as one of the best actors of her generation. Perhaps that’s true in the states because Cruz works in Spain more often than in English language films, but here in Ferrari, a film about trying to create the perfect race car, she is the most combustible engine on screen.

And I probably should speak to those race cars. Not only does Mann film open road racing with a brio that just about makes you feel like you’re shaking in your seat the way the driver is in his, he also makes you feel the full danger of the activity itself. Put simply, open road race cars at the time were insanely dangerous, and you have to wonder what the drivers were thinking when they got into them. 

The lack of safety measures is hard to fathom. These long, fragile cars make hairpin turns at speeds up to 150 MPH or more. There was no cover over the driver’s head, and their helmets were less useful than the old leather helmets early football players used. Pigskin players might have spent a lot of time banging heads through leather, but they didn’t rely on those helmets to keep them safe if they crashed a car moving at a ridiculously high rate of speed.

Mann seeds this danger throughout the film and then lets it explode in front of your eyes at the film’s climax. A driver is in his Ferrari, performing at his very best. Crowds come to the side of the road with great enthusiasm to watch him fly by, and then one seemingly tiny thing goes wrong, and a slow motion wave of havoc is unleashed that, I shit thee not, is on par with the soldiers making land at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. I have seldom seen anything so horrific in a film, but the horror is there for a reason. Not just because it really happened, but to make the viewer understand the pure madness of the business of open road racing in its relative infancy. I’m not a person who often speaks to the screen when I’m watching a film—almost never in fact. I prefer complete silence whenever possible. But as the scene unfolded, the words “my god” (and I’m an atheist) just floated out of my mouth.

The only thing that keeps Ferrari from being A-list Michael Mann is that tiresome storyline with the mistress (although it does pay some hell raising dividends when Cruz’s Laura uncovers the ruse), but let me just say, if Ferrari is second tier Mann (and by my lights it is) it’s A-list for almost any other director. 

What Oscar Missed:

Should have been:

Best Supporting Actress: Cruz over America Ferrera (Barbie), Jodie Foster (Nyad)

Best Editing

Best Sound 

Best Cinematography 

Could have been:

Best Director

Best Actor: Driver

Final Note on Ferrari: 

Ferrari was the second film in less than five years to deal with the famous car company. In 2019, Director James Mangold made Ford v. Ferrari starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale. The film told the story of Ford’s improbable victory over Ferrari in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a race Ferrari had dominated for ages. Ford v Ferrari is a solid, highly professional meat and potatoes film that made a lot more money than Mann’s film and earned four Oscar nominations–including Best Picture.

Postscript:

Michael Mann is 81 years old. In the history of his stellar career on film, all of his films combined have won one Oscar…for Sound (The Last of the Mohicans). Just try and wrap your head around that fact. Aside from the fact that he has only one Best Director nomination, his collection of superior films–in ways both technical and emotional–have won one more Oscar than I have.  

Supposedly Mann is circling a version of Heat 2 that will somehow be both a prequel and sequel. I have no idea how the hell that will work, but when and wherever the line forms, I will be in it. Likely near the front, after pushing my way past the elderly and infirmed.

Let’s hope he gets to it soon. And let’s hope the Academy finally takes note. And if they once again fail to do so, can they at least give Mann an honorary Oscar? I know it’s akin to a participation trophy, but this level of participation should not go unheralded by an Academy that is supposedly dedicated to recognizing the masters of the craft.

Michael Mann is a master of the craft.