Michael Mann

Ferrari

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Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari

The first obvious thing about Ferrari, a film from 2023, is that it was written by Troy Kennedy Martin, writer of 1969’s The Italian Job. Martin died in 2009! It’s taken a long time to get this film made. Michael Mann has been talking about it since the early years of the new millennium. Back then he was going to produce and Sydney Pollack was going to direct. In the end, after much to and fro, and with Pollack also dead en route, Mann wound up directing it himself. The second thing to say is that for a film about sexy cars, beautiful women, danger, speed, the thrill of the race and so … Read more

Thief

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Frank leans out of a car window

Know thyself, as the ancient Greeks used to say. 1981’s Thief is Michael Mann’s debut feature, one of James Caan’s finest films and though it’s neo-noir and set on mean streets (Violent Streets was its original title), it’s Greek to the bone – this hero is shot through with the tragic flaw of not knowing himself well enough. Caan plays the ex-con now running a car sales business who keeps his hand in by moonlighting as a jewel thief. He’s good, one of Chicago’s best. In an opening sequence Mann demonstrates how good, and that this film’s director has seen all the great heist movies, in a sequence wehre Frank (Caan) is shown … Read more

Miami Vice

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Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell in Miami Vice

So masculine it could reverse a vasectomy, Michael Mann’s feature length Miami Vice actually tells the same story that eventually ground down the TV series – Crockett (now Colin Farrell, then Don Johnson) and Tubbs (now Jamie Foxx, then Philip Michael Thomas) go undercover with a drugs gang, get so deep they’re not sure which way they’re facing any more, then refind themselves before screaming towards a guns-blazing finale, designer clothes looking immaculate. Built from what look like a series of high-end international aftershave adverts showcasing the very pinnacle of fast living, it is an out and out exercise in cool glamour. So was the 1980s TV series, of course, but Mann (who … Read more