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L.A. Takedown can absolutely be skipped, even for completists. It's as if the most hacky TV movie director of the 80s decided to remake a Michael Mann movie in an hour and fifteen minutes. It really is pretty unwatchable.

It does have "movie of the week"-circa 1989 stamped all over it. I'd say that the only interesting difference is that the Waingro character is more weasel-y and way less intimidating than what Kevin Gage ultimately rendered in Heat.

I like how the coffee shop scene is pretty much word for word identical, and covered in a similar manner in both pictures, yet it's incredibly flat and unexciting in L.A. Takedown, whereas it's still one of the highlights of Heat. Good actors can make a difference!

He also had adequate time to shoot everything in Heat. But that's part of the appeal of certain moments in L.A. Takedown to me. Like some of Mann's work on the TV series Miami Vice, there's a scrappy invention and rawness of somebody working without enough time and resources to get it perfect. Case in point is the moment where the robbery goes to shit and one of the guys kidnaps a kid off the sidewalk. More beautifully staged and shot in Heat but more viscerally effective and convincingly scary in L.A. Takedown.

warren oates wrote:He also had adequate time to shoot everything in Heat. But that's part of the appeal of certain moments in L.A. Takedown to me. Like some of Mann's work on the TV series Miami Vice, there's a scrappy invention and rawness of somebody working without enough time and resources to get it perfect. Case in point is the moment where the robbery goes to shit and one of the guys kidnaps a kid off the sidewalk. More beautifully staged and shot in Heat but more viscerally effective and convincingly scary in L.A. Takedown.

Horses for courses, warren... but I certainly wouldn't ascribe "beautifully staged" or "more viscerally effective" to anything in L.A. Takedown, and certainly not when compared to Heat. It's nothing more than a dry run with no money and an underfed script. And the cast is terrible. I bought it at a video store in London way back when, paid to have it converted to NTSC, thinking this was some Rosetta Stone that would unlock secrets and provide insights... nah. There's a reason why it didn't get picked up as a pilot, and I'm not even sure they aired it in the US as a standalone movie.

Your heightened expectations probably did you in insofar as hating it then. If you like Heat as much as I do, it's kind of like hearing the demo of your favorite song. It feels like a sketch of what was to come, something which could be molded and shaped into something else as was the case here. Plus I wouldn't be too surprised if NBC meddled around with Michael's process making it, too.

TedW wrote: And the cast is terrible.

When were Michael Rooker and Laura Harrington terrible?

I'm talking the leads primarily, Plank and McArthur. But there's no reason for me to bash this movie further. It is what it is. You think Laura Harrington delivers a fine performance in this thing, that's cool, I won't argue.

I will say that even not having seen Heat Plank is just doing a bad Pacino impression. McArthur does fine for the setting though.

I'll be damned, while it lasts, The Jericho Mile.

Here's the first part of the 20 minute From L.A. Takedown To Heat interview with Michael Mann that BBC2 did when they premiered L.A. Takedown back in 1997.

Is Manhunter with MGM or Lionsgate right now? I know MGM put out the recent DVD's and Blu, but the last time I saw it on TV the subtitles had a LG copyright.

I can't speak with confidence on that, but speaking of Manhunter...here is an interview with William Petersen from around its release. Great time-capsule. The whole concept of "profiling" was quite unknown at the time.

BTW, has anyone noticed how similar the transitions from opening credits to first shot Manhunter and Blue Velvet are? Both released within just a couple months of each other. Lynch was actually initially tapped to direct Manhunter but found it too disturbing (!)

Didn't he say that the novel was disgusting, or something to that effect? It's funny now because there have been quite a few Lynchian scenes during the first season of Hannibal.

RobertAltman wrote:I like how the coffee shop scene is pretty much word for word identical, and covered in a similar manner in both pictures, yet it's incredibly flat and unexciting in L.A. Takedown, whereas it's still one of the highlights of Heat. Good actors can make a difference!

What also made a difference was the preparation the actors did, prepped by Michael for Heat as compared to it's TV counterpart. He might have had a couple months max in total production time on L.A. Takedown, which meant the most that the leads probably did was read a few books and wear out their VHS copies of The French Connection.

months? on a TV film, it's possible that he had weeks.

He said in the video a few posts above that it was shot in 19 days. Could be weeks then if the pre and post-production schedules were just as short.

Maybe I'm missing some posts in another thread, but has anyone here brought up Mann's new film, Cyber, which has been in post for nearly 2 months now? I'm very excited for this. Per IMDb: "American and Chinese forces work together on a case of high-level computer hacking." Mann is at his best when he's telling stories about the Now, the cutting-edge de-humanized, postmodern whatever-you-wanna-call-it alienated society of ours (e.g. Heat, Miami Vice film), so I'm looking forward to this. Not that I don't really like Public Enemies or Mohicans, but I prefer it when he does present-day films.

There's been little word on it, unfortunately. But one of its stars, Viola Davis, just said in an interview that the experience was extremely grueling (yet worth it), and that the camera-work looked extraordinary.

Naturally there's some doubt already regarding Chris Hemsworth in the lead role... but think of how Mann got career-best performances out of mostly mediocre actors like Will Smith, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell. In fact, so many of the peformances in his films are the finest or among the finest of that actor's career: I'd certainly say Russell Crowe was never better than in The Insider, and admittedly I'm not a fan of either but Depp and Bale impressed me most in Public Enemies.

oh yeah wrote: Naturally there's some doubt already regarding Chris Hemsworth in the lead role... but think of how Mann got career-best performances out of mostly mediocre actors like Will Smith, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell.

Don't lump Jamie Foxx, one of the best character actors of generation, in with those other guys.

TedW wrote:

oh yeah wrote:Naturally there's some doubt already regarding Chris Hemsworth in the lead role... but think of how Mann got career-best performances out of mostly mediocre actors like Will Smith, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell.

Don't lump Jamie Foxx, one of the best character actors of generation, in with those other guys.

Well, I don't agree, though I suppose he's better than Farrell and Smith on the whole. But was he really "one of the best character actors of generation" prior to being cast in Collateral in 2003, or especially Ali in 2001?

Hasn't Farrell done enough to be considered at least a good actor let alone better than Foxx.

oh yeah wrote:

TedW wrote:

oh yeah wrote:Naturally there's some doubt already regarding Chris Hemsworth in the lead role... but think of how Mann got career-best performances out of mostly mediocre actors like Will Smith, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell.

Don't lump Jamie Foxx, one of the best character actors of generation, in with those other guys.

Well, I don't agree, though I suppose he's better than Farrell and Smith on the whole. But was he really "one of the best character actors of generation" prior to being cast in Collateral in 2003, or especially Ali in 2001?

I think you're confusing Ali with Ray, Foxx being outstanding in the latter. He never really followed up on the promise of that, Collateral, and Miami Vice, but it's clear on the basis of those three that he's very talented.

oh yeah wrote:

TedW wrote:

oh yeah wrote:Naturally there's some doubt already regarding Chris Hemsworth in the lead role... but think of how Mann got career-best performances out of mostly mediocre actors like Will Smith, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell.

Don't lump Jamie Foxx, one of the best character actors of generation, in with those other guys.

Well, I don't agree, though I suppose he's better than Farrell and Smith on the whole. But was he really "one of the best character actors of generation" prior to being cast in Collateral in 2003, or especially Ali in 2001?

He wasn't pursuing a career as a dramatic actor prior to Any Given Sunday, in which he is also quite good. And he is excellent in Ali, Collateral, Vice, and Ray as well. Perhaps even a few others (I didn't see the cellist movie), but certainly those.

knives wrote:Hasn't Farrell done enough to be considered at least a good actor let alone better than Foxx.

Not really.

TedW wrote:

knives wrote:Hasn't Farrell done enough to be considered at least a good actor let alone better than Foxx.

Not really.

So In Bruges, Horrible Bosses, The Way Back, Cassandra's Dream, and The New World mean nothing?