Michael Mann
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Drive (2011)
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
influenced by Thief (1981), Manhunter (1986), Miami Vice (2006), Heat (1995), Collateral (2004)
Themes Visuals
Without the extreme violence, Drive would be a lifeless rehash of such self-consciously existential thrillers as Walter Hill’s The Driver and Michael Mann’s Thief instead of, ?Oh, shit, oh, God, this is so friggin’ hard-core!?
At the same time, Drive is also inflected with the neon vibe and synthesizer rhythms of early Michal Mann films like Thief (1981) and Manhunter (1986).
Refn's choice in neon lights and obscure synth-pop wind up putting "Drive" in the company of that era's "Thief" and "Manhunter," while other elements link it with "F/X" and even "American Gigolo."
The pink, cursive font of the opening credits immediately calls to mind '80s classics like Smooth Talk while the obsessive interest in functionality and work (and Cliff Martinez's awesome Tangerine Dream soundtrack) recalls Michael Mann's Thief, but it's that certain quality of masculine stillness that marks Drive as another Nicolas Winding Refn masterpiece.
The slow, methodical build up harkens back to Mann's early work in "Thief" and "Manhunter."
The sleek pic might remind one of Walter Hill's "The Driver," or Michael Mann’s "Thief" or any of those Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns or even Jean-Pierre Melville’s "Le Samouraï," yet this one is a different machine--it comes to life in its own adrenaline filled way and stands out as Refn's signature ode to violence, where a bloodbath cleanses the film from any constraints to its storytelling.
Rare positives include art direction, production design and costumes that are seamless in their period flavor, and a handful of arty shots (one, taking place in a movie theater, is a wily reference to the famous moment in Alfred Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" set at a tennis match).
There's a shot in a movie theater that reminds us of the tennis match in Strangers on a Train (1951).
Otherwise, were the audience in Manns marvelous little homage to the Strangers on a Train tennis match, looking left and right and up and down in a theater and still missing everything.
Mann’s homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” — a bit in a movie theater where we notice Dillinger because he’s the only person whose head is not moving back and forth — is clever.
Den of Thieves (2018)
Directed by Christian Gudegast
influenced by Heat (1995), Thief (1981), Collateral (2004), Miami Vice (2006)
Plot Visuals
As Den of Thieves‘s first shot, an overhead view of the rain-soaked streets of Los Angeles, gives way to the scene of an armored-car robbery that goes awry because of a trigger-happy thief, one may wonder if the film is more than just an homage to Heat , but also a copy-and-paste job.
'Heat'-lite.
The intricate double storyline is an obvious knockoff of the one in “Heat” (with a distant echo of “The French Connection”), and for roughly 45 minutes of the film’s 2-hour-and-20-minute running time, “Den of Thieves” is sturdy enough to earn the comparison.
Time has not been kind to Gudegast’s film: Den of Thieves is such a dumb misunderstanding of the genres in which it plays, such a loud, interminable shart of unmitigated machismo, such a heavy-handed rip-off of Heat and The Usual Suspects and even Ocean’s Eleven (and maybe even The Fast and the Furious, but for scumbags) that it feels anachronistic on arrival, the kind of melodramatic, pulpy studio action flick that doesn’t get made anymore because it shouldn’t.
“Den of Thieves” rips several hundred pages out of the Michael Mann “Heat” playbook.
“Den of Thieves” starts off promisingly, with an atmospheric heist scene reminiscent of Michael Mann films like “Heat” and “Thief.”
He’s a gifted director, clearly inspired by the work of Martin Scorsese (especially Goodfellas ) and Michael Mann (especially Heat ), but assured enough to mount multiple sequences that take big cinematic risks and work like gangbusters because of them.
And while director John Hillcoat loves big, loud, urban violence full of high-caliber assaults and tough sweaty guys — there's one robbery here that may remind you of Michael Mann's classic "Heat" — he doesn't know how to rein in his actors.
Very “Heat”-like.
More like the one in Heat or the opening scene of The Dark Knight—swift, methodical, and necessarily brutal.
This was an opportunity for Hillcoat to make his Heat, and get on the radar of casual film fans.
Beyond the titular hook, there’s little here that you wouldn’t get from putting “Heat,” “The Departed” and half-a-dozen episodes of “The Shield” in a blender.
Naturally, “Wrath of Man,” with its heists on the streets of LA, will be compared to Michael Mann’s terrific (and terrifically long) 1995 movie “Heat.”
In “Wrath of Man,” the action is more grounded, recalling the work of Michael Mann’s “Heat” (1996) or Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” (2008).
It’s a Heat rip-off, but not a gonzo one like Den of Thieves, which was anchored by the uncontainable charisma of Gerard Butler, Pablo Schreiber, and the sneakily effective O’Shea Jackson Jr.
Guy Ritchie’s new film “ Wrath of Man” opens a lot like Christopher Nolan’s “ The Dark Knight” which was inspired by Michael Mann’s “ Heat” .
Think of Christian Gudegast’s delightfully scuzzy Den of Thieves crossed with the epic L.A. grandeur of Michael Mann’s Heat, peppered just a touch of the nihilism found in S. Craig Zahler’s Dragged Across Concrete and you’re mostly there.
Ritchie appears torn between remaking “Death Wish” and Michael Mann’s “Heat.”
Kill the Messenger (2014)
Directed by Michael Cuesta
influenced by The Insider (1999)
Themes Plot Characters
The movie, based on a true story, lacks the emotional resonance of similarly themed films such as “All the President’s Men” and “The Insider,” but it’s a story worth telling, even if all the pieces aren’t there.
The second finds him going for a meager version of “The Insider.”
The crusading journalist has been a mainstay of thrillers—some depicting real events, some not—through out the post-Watergate era, in films starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford (“All the President’s Men”), Warren Beatty (“The Parallax View”), James Woods (“Salvador”), Mel Gibson (“The Year of Living Dangerously”), Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington (“The Pelican Brief”), Al Pacino (“The Insider”), Robert Downey, Jr., and Jake Gyllenhaal (“Zodiac”), Russell Crowe (“State of Play”), and many others.
The closest parallel is Russell Crowe in The Insider, except Crowe’s Jeffrey Wigand is a source who has a dogged journalist (Al Pacino’s Lowell Bergman) fighting for him.
Kill the Messenger doesn’t have the level of elegance and taut excitement of such exposé classics as All the President’s Men, The Insider or Erin Brockovich .
Films like All the President’s Men, The Parallax View and The Insider are a few examples.
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Directed by Arthur Penn
influenced Public Enemies (2009)
Characters Themes Visuals
Depp is charismatic but his Dillinger is a wan copy of Warren Beatty in “Bonnie and Clyde,” even paraphrasing a Beatty line, “I’m John Dillinger.
This hollow gangster-driven outing, which trades on Mann's reputation, is not in the same league as "The Untouchables" or "Bonnie and Clyde."
Other later-period movies about that era — Bonnie and Clyde, for instance, or even John Milius' 1973 Dillinger — had fun with the old cars, the wardrobes, and the ricky-ticky music.
It fits neatly on the shelf with "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Godfather."
On a visual scale, it's technically proficient and impressive, but on an emotional level, it lacks the cinematic gravitas to stand alongside classic gangster epics like “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Untouchables.”
Taking place in a nondescript town, this is a movie that its director and co-writer (with husband Jordan Horowitz) Julia Hart describes as inspired by the male-driven crime thrillers of the ’70s and, in fact, derives its title from Michael Mann’s 1981 Thief, in a scene where Tuesday Weld tells James Caan, “I’m your woman, and you’re my man.”
As I watched writer-director Julia Hart’s fourth feature I had a strong sense of director Michael Mann’s 1981 action drama, “Thief,” starring James Caan.
Hart began wondering what happened to the great women in movies like Tuesday Weld in Michael Mann’s Thief from 1981 or Diane Keaton’s character in The Godfather .
“I’m Your Woman” borrows its title from Tuesday Weld’s line “I’m your woman and you’re my man” in Michael Mann’s 1981 thriller “Thief.”
Hart has spoken about how she was pulled to make “I’m Your Woman” by wanting to follow Diane Keaton in “The Godfather” or Tuesday Weld in “Thief.”
Nightcrawler (2014)
Directed by Dan Gilroy
influenced by Collateral (2004), Thief (1981), Heat (1995)
Visuals Themes
He’s created a colourful world in this dark corner of California, but the full vibrancy of the city never quite registers the way it has in after-hours thrillers like Collateral and Heat (a Michael Mann connection is engendered immediately, thanks to Lou borrowing James Caan’s leather jacket from Thief ).
There’s a harsh, neon brassiness about the film that’s very Eighties: not just in the climactic car chase action (in a way, as opportunistic as Louis himself), but in the overall look, with DP Robert Elswit giving Los Angeles and its night lights a synthetic metallic sheen, with echoes of Michael Mann, from Thief to Collateral.
It was shot both digitally and on film, as was Michael Mann’s “Collateral,” another nervous nocturnal thriller, set in the same city.
For a first-time feature, Nightcrawler benefits from an accomplished technical package, highlighted by sharp widescreen cinematography from Robert Elswit (who’s worked regularly with Paul Thomas Anderson) that captures the L.A. backdrops in an array of bright color, and a score by James Newton Howard that recalls the hypnotic melodies he composed for Michael Mann’s Collateral – another City of Angels noir set during the wee hours of the night, and for which this film feels like a distant, crazy cousin: one whose weapon of choice is the camera itself.
You can feel it in Michael Mann's Heat , or in Collateral a decade later.
“Nightcrawler,” which Gilroy also wrote, shares a lineage with some great American films, including “Network,” Michael Mann’s “Collateral” and the signature works of Martin Scorsese, including “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy.”
The Untouchables (1987)
Directed by Brian De Palma
influenced Public Enemies (2009), Miami Vice (2006)
Themes
Obvious candidates for comparison are Arthur Penn's 1967 touchstone, Bonnie and Clyde , and Brian De Palma's 1987 The Untouchables .
This hollow gangster-driven outing, which trades on Mann's reputation, is not in the same league as "The Untouchables" or "Bonnie and Clyde."
On a visual scale, it's technically proficient and impressive, but on an emotional level, it lacks the cinematic gravitas to stand alongside classic gangster epics like “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Untouchables.”
Sadly, this misfire is no classic like “Bonnie and Clyde” — it’s not even as good as “The Untouchables.”
Public Enemies, set in the "golden age of bank robbery," when the likes of Baby Face Nelson, Ma and Pa Barker, and Bonnie and Clyde were looting and shooting across the land, is the first A-list Depression-era crime pic since Brian DePalma's The Untouchables.
The results are a far more subdued affair than a summer popcorn movie like “The Untouchables” or fictionalized films set in Chicago’s gangland setting such as the Coens’ “Miller’s Crossing” or “Road to Perdition.”
A discussion at the open about the meaning of the word "homage"with Paul mispronouncing it, har-harleads into a disastrous scene where Paul interrogates a suspect by acting out lines of dialogue from movies ranging from "Heat" and " Training Day " to "The Color Purple" and "Schindler's List."
Paul walks in with a gun, all crazy-eyed, throwing about lines from things ranging from Training Day and Heat to Schindler's List and The Color Purple with some Star Wars tossed in for good measure.
Lobbying for the part of “bad cop,” Paul insists that his years of watching cop movies have prepared him for this moment, and launches a performative assault on the detainee that begins with bits from Heat and Training Day, but quickly devolves into a channeling of Harpo from The Color Purple.
Jim watches from behind the one-way mirror as Paul interrogates by running through dozens of quotes from other movies: " Training Day ," " Heat ," " Schindler's List " and even " Dirty Dancing ."
Then, not content, the overly ambitious Smith took it a step further, and we get allusions to "Heat," Training Day," "Scarface," "Star Wars," "Schindler's List," "The Color Purple," "Cool Hand Luke," "They Call Me Mr. Tibbs," even "Jaws."
"Cop Out" is a buddy cop film in which one of the cops continually quotes dialogue espoused by fictional cops, in everything from "Heat" to "RoboCop," and not once is it funny.
Emily the Criminal (2022)
Directed by John Patton Ford
influenced by Thief (1981), Collateral (2004)
Visuals
Emily is a natural, and though Ford’s film is never as flashy as Michael Mann’s Thief or Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, both of which must surely be references for this city noir, it does elicit the same amphetamine rush, notably in a scene in which Emily takes ownership of a hot car.
Towards its climactic battle, it does get a little outlandish but it earns massive credit for its hugely impressive first two-thirds, which echoes Drive, Uncut Gems, Nightcrawler, and Michael Mann’s Thief in both style and tone but is certainly its own, unique beast.
As in Michael Mann’s Collateral, the movie covers a wide terrain away from familiar Los Angeles scenery.
From Jed Kurzel’s thundering score to the SS goon who takes the time to spit on a small boy’s baseball, Overlord bombasts its way through its mondo sub-genre, with a sign that reads “Moreau”, an imposing keep that recalls, well, Michael Mann’s The Keep , and several direct lifts from Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
But it’s fun in its own lowbrow way, and makes a nice complement to an undeservedly forgotten lark from 1983—Michael Mann’s goofy “The Keep,” in which Nazi troops in Romania had to contend with an evil force haunting their mountain fortress.
Kusama moves her star, and her camera, through these silky L.A. nightscapes in a style reminiscent of Michael Mann; between the visual aesthetics and the dazzling bank robberies and shoot-outs, Kusama basically remade Heat, but with Kidman in both roles.
The spectre and greatness of Michael Mann’s Heat hangs heavily over Karyn Kusama’s grandiose L.A. crime drama Destroyer.
There’s something familiar about Karyn Kusama‘s Destroyer, the sense that this film is unashamed of its genetic connection to classic cops-and-crooks films like Heat and The French Connection.
Think the Diane Venora/Natalie Portman portions of Heat, only without Michael Mann's acute attention to emotional shorthand.
If the worst case scenario is a female driven Heat, that would still be worth doing.
Unfortunately, this crime film plays like a mixture of Heat and Kill Bill that doesn’t earn its extended running time.
Tapping into everything from “All the President’s Men” and “The Insider” (with a touch of “Spotlight” and “Erin Brockovich” for good measure), “Dark Waters” follows Bilot through the evolution of his interests in the case against DuPont, a company that his own firm represents.
The spirit of social activist dramas such as Norma Rae, Matewan, Silkwood and The Insider is alive and well in Dark Waters, a compelling account of a drawn-out legal case in which a tenacious whistleblowing lawyer spent years pursuing DuPont for secretly poisoning customers through the use of toxic chemicals and products, including Teflon.
Modern-day corporate thrillers as great as 1999’s The Insider and 2007’s Michael Clayton don’t come along too often.
"Dark Waters," starring Mark Ruffalo as an attorney trying to punish the DuPont chemical corporation for dumping toxic waste in West Virginia, is a lone-crusader-against-the-corrupt-system film, in the tradition of " The Insider ," " A Civil Action ," and " The Verdict ."
It was launched in the late ’60s and ’70s, with films like “Z” and “All the President’s Men” and “Norma Rae,” and it continued through the ’80s, with films like “Silkwood,” and the ’90s, with dramas like “The Insider.”
Instead of giving into the obvious rage of the situation, Haynes gives his story exactly two moments of righteous indignation – including one speech from Bilott’s boss, slickly played by Tim Robbins, that recalls the best and most ferocious moment of Michael Mann’s The Insider – but otherwise lets the facts, and Bilott’s tenaciousness in discovering them, speak for themselves.
The opening of the second film recalled Michael Mann’s heist thriller Heat and here Nolan casts Ben Mendelsohn of Animal Kingdom fame as a white-collar villain up to his neck in shit.
The storyline - which essentially follows Christian Bale's Batman as he tangles with a fierce villain called the Joker (Heath Ledger) - has been augmented with a whole host of subplots and subcharacters, as Nolan's efforts to replicate the style and tone of such gritty forebearers as Michael Mann's Heat and Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy ensure that's there's a lot going on within the final product's 152-minute running time.
A sprawling crime epic evoking Michael Mann's Heat and Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City , the film saw Batman tussle with arch-nemesis The Joker (a stunning final performance from Heath Ledger) while corruption spread like a virus through Gotham's corridors of power.
And he all but admits the association by having Selina Kyle make a knowing reference to Mann’s Heat when she tells Batman that he should meet Bane: “You two should exchange notes over coffee.”
It’s a tense meet-up between Neeson and Harris that reminds you just a bit of that exchange between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in “Heat.”
This movie may not pack the genuine emotional punch of Michael Mann's "Heat" or James Mangold's "Cop Land" -- or, for that matter, any of the countless Westerns that inspired it -- but "Run All Night" is a mostly satisfying action-drama from director Jaume Collet-Serra, who made Neeson's "Non-Stop" such a guilty pleasure.
It’s not quite like De Niro and Pacino squaring off over a diner table in Michael Mann’s Heat (1995), but the scene where Jimmy and Shawn sit across from each other in a respectable restaurant, with the former requesting that his son be spared and the latter assuring him that he won’t, has a frisson that emboldens even the most routine of action-movie moments.
The Little Things (2021)
Directed by John Lee Hancock
influenced by Manhunter (1986)
Plot Themes Characters
And you’ve really seen the rest of the movie before — almost literally, since “The Little Things,” written and directed by John Lee Hancock (“The Blind Side,” “Saving Mr. Banks”), is a serial-killer procedural that would like to be “Se7en,” with a great many touches lifted from “Manhunter,” but it plays more like a not-so-very-special episode of “C.S.I.”
In fact, the first half of the movie fails at trying to be a mix between "Seven" and "Manhunter" with its gruesome crime scenes and the skilled detective character, who sees all the angles.
For anyone who pines for the days of “Manhunter,” “Silence of the Lambs” and “Se7en,” “The Little Things” is like a warm blanket of, you know, morgue forensics, grisly crime scenes and serial killer mania.
Washington is delightful to watch in full “Manhunter” mode, but it lacks punch because so much of his identity and history is played very close to the vest.
There are echoes of Steven Knight’s ingenious thriller Locke, a film that pushed us to the edge of our seats via Tom Hardy’s string of relatively mundane yet breathlessly tense car calls or Michael Mann’s Collateral where Jamie Foxx’s cab driver is forced into a violent partnership with Tom Cruise’s backseat assassin.
Any taxi-set film following in the footsteps of Michael Mann’s killer-in-a-cab thriller Collateral has big shoes to fill. Unfortunately, first-time writer-director Christy Hall takes us on a tiresomely familiar ride through regressive ideas about relationships, and it’s painful to watch seasoned actors Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn portray stereotypes and deliver dated dialogue.
“Welcome to the Punch” is slightly reminiscent of Michael Mann’s cat-and-mouse thriller “ Heat ,” but Creevy’s movie pales in comparison.
Meanwhile, McAvoy and Strong engage in a decidedly Heat-like tango of mutual wary respect that suggests they’re more alike than either of them would care to admit.
Writer/director Creevy draws on fast-paced, bullet-riddled John Woo and Tony Scott flicks, along with a heavy dose of Mann's Heat.
Sure enough, there’s a good deal of Mann’s Heat in Creevy’s sophomore effort.
It’s the kind of culture-fart that David Cameron would approve of; it’s got mass appeal – a thriller fashioned as the British Heat.
He also acknowledges in the press notes a love of films like “Heat” and “Infernal Affairs” and then feebly tries to rip them off.