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Our entertainment culture is littered with mouth-watering prospects of irresistible magnitude. For instance, sports fans have many "showdowns of a lifetime" or opportunities where the "annals of time will be rewritten" each year. Who would miss a Sampras v. Agassi five-set thriller or a Tyson v. Lewis hyped and jacked-up slobberknocker? At the other end of society's pleasure spectrum, who would fail to acknowledge the landmark artistic collaborations of Hitchcock and Stewart or Cukor and Hepburn in the world of film?
With his masterful Los Angeles crime saga, the Chicago-born writer and director Michael Mann has fused together two of the greatest actors of all-time to create another, if not the, incredible cinematic affiliation: Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Film aficionados constantly talk of Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Scarface (1983), and Scent of a Woman (1992) showcasing not just the sheer magnificent abilities of the New York duo but also examples of faultless acting. The former plays a criminal mastermind, Neil McCauley, who, with gang members Chris (Val Kilmer) and Michael (Tom Sizemore), plan and execute successful scores on a frequent basis within the confides of the City of Angels. Pacino's Vincent Hanna is less of a circumspect operator and more of a gung-ho L.A.P.D. detective solely interested in preventing De Niro and his colleagues from continually coming out on top against the vigilant authorities. To compliment their often comparable acting excellence, Mann places the two in a very equal light - the calculated unlawful genius against the resolute and steadfast hunter. Both are simply electric, De Niro seemingly relishes the understated challenges of portraying a real-life individual and Pacino's trademark hollering nature adds perfectly to the mercurial and volatile nature of Hanna.
So many things happen in the two hours and forty minutes that it would be idiotic to state that this is simply an old-fashioned cops versus robbers tale. Mann illustrates his usual thematic shifts, blue is the prevailing pastel here and the cityscape is captured wonderfully. The director also adds dimension to the main characters with their personal lives playing a foremost part - Ashley Judd, Amy Brenneman, Diane Verona, and even a young Natalie Portman all contribute well to Mann's complicated vision without resorting to becoming inexplicably dull, which most ensembles seemingly achieve inadvertently. One thing which never strays from awe-inspiring is a beautifully shot shootout on the streets of L.A. which stems from a bank robbery gone slightly amiss. You will realise the magic when you witness it, and this, coupled with two other scenes of supreme exhilaration - the opening scene robbery and closing showdown - will leave you with spine-tingling doses of adrenaline.
Two scenes which definitely need to be briefly mentioned are the festivities and revelry of the main event coffee-drinking session and Mann's idea of foreplay beforehand. In The Godfather: Part Two (1974) De Niro and Pacino never shared the screen. The whole principle of desirability for this film was the first time the two masters were going to wrestle the camera time from each other. Mann teases us with a brief episode involving a surveillance operation and the quick exchanges of circumlocutory glares Bobby and Alfredo share. When Mann finishes fooling around with our desperation, the aforementioned diner scene is utterly everything you would expect from two of the greatest actors of all-time - outstanding and simply unmissable. "I don't know how to do anything else!" Hanna states, before McCauley answers back with, "Neither do I!" - a nod to the occupations they hold in reality in addition to their professional alter-egos. The slight twinkle of the eyes and glimmers of smirks from the pair after those lines will fill you with jovial warmth - just like the other memorable moments which will emboss themselves on your brain in this articulate and intimate masterpiece.
The extras
This double disc 'Special Edition' is obviously certainly better than Warner Brothers' vanilla release. Michael Mann's commentary track is certainly welcome but it is seemingly apparent that an individual cannot keep a curious viewer interested for the full epic length which is a shame. He makes some interesting points but the long silences are annoying. One wonders what the hypothetical track involving De Niro, Pacino, Mann et al could be like! Three rather mediocre trailers round off Disc One.
Disc Two's eleven deleted scenes are all worthy of being added to the main feature with only three weighing in at over a minute - nice inclusions nonetheless. "The Making Of" is split into three featurettes and overall the segments add up to a decent documentary of about an hour in length. All the main players involve themselves in recent interviews apart from De Niro who is only seen in clips from 1995. Nice factoids emerge ranging from the fact that Vincent was supposed to be high on cocaine most of the time and how soldier-turned-author Andy McNab assisted in the shooting practice off-set. The diner scene spawns its own ten minute featurette which is arguably the package highlight and a couple of the crew pop back to the Los Angeles locations in another informative twelve minutes - the actual diner gets a nice plug and rightly so, sitting where those two legends filmed such a famous scene would be very surreal. The selection is rather repetitive though and not enough behind-the-scenes footage is included. The producers include actual scenes from the film unnecessarily and L.A. Takedown (1989), which acted as Mann's Heat rehearsal, is steered well clear of.
The summary
Mann weaves a fine tapestry of wonder, somehow creating one of the best action films you will ever see in addition to creating one of the best platforms of acting eloquence, shrewdness and instinctive drive the arts have ever afforded. A work of poetry flowing with sprays of bullets equates to a very attractive tale spiced up with hints of unnerving elegance between two masterminds.
