Boy Movies #42

The Michael Mann issue

You’re reading Boy Movies, a newsletter about movies for boys. I was on (unannounced — it’s like that sometimes) hiatus last week, but today I’m returning to your inboxes with a long-awaited Michael Mann issue, which people have been requesting since the literal day I started this whole operation. It feels appropriate now that the Ferrari trailer has ripped and roared its way onto the world stage. (Someone free Adam Driver from the fake Italian accent PLEASE!!!)

We’re in this together. Fates intertwined. Cosmic coincidence.

Halfway through the movie Collateral, I opened up the Notes app on my phone, typed the words “michael mann and his little love stories,” and laughed at how right I was. Few are willing to say that about Collateral, Mann’s 2004 Tom Cruise-Jamie Foxx two-hander about a hitman (Cruise) who ropes a cab driver (Foxx) into a night of murder, which I know because no one ever told me. Collateral, like Mann’s seminal Pacino-De Niro cat and mouse thriller Heat, is a love story about two guys who are bad for each other but make each other feel alive. As Lyvie said, Michael Mann is such a romantic.

I can’t say whether Mann considers himself a romantic; no one’s ever let me ask him, though I wish someone would. (If anyone from Michael Mann’s team is reading this, the comments are open.) I’m fairly certain his fan base, which of course happens to skew heavily male¹ and heterosexual, wouldn’t classify him as such. At the very least, it likely wouldn’t be the first word the biggest Mannheads would use to describe him. Regardless, Mann clearly has a soft heart in which there is always room for romance, as seen between Cruise and Foxx in Collateral and between Pacino and De Niro in Heat. Even, maybe to a slightly lesser extent, between Colin Farrell and Foxx in Miami Vice. To paraphrase Pacino’s Hanna, Mann doesn’t know how to do anything else.

A Mann romance can typically be categorized as a collision between a force of nature and an overworked schmuck. A Mann romance is never about two people who bring out the best in each other, but rather two people who bring out what needs to be brought out in each other, for better or worse. These guys all exist in fatalistic reality-adjacent worlds where everyone is doomed, but it means something that they were able to find someone who could make them feel something in the interim. A Mann romance seems to say, “Where have you been all my life? Can you get out of it? Can you stay forever?”

Mann has spoken about the extensive character backgrounds he and the actors developed during the making of Heat, which is what makes that eventual collision between Hanna and McCauley (De Niro) so stunning. By the time they meet, we know enough about these guys to know that they’re each other’s exact equal, and we have the pleasure of watching in real time as they figure it out for themselves. Elsewhere, Collateral is a classic story of boy meets boy, boy holds boy hostage while he goes on a killing spree, and boy discovers the person he could be because boy believed in him. A bit further down the line, in Miami Vice, Rico’s (Foxx) belief that Sonny (Farrell) always knows what he’s doing (he doesn’t, he’s just horny) is part of what throws their undercover operation into chaos. All three of these films are formed around their central duo: Heat doesn’t work without that charged diner scene, Collateral is most electric when Foxx’s Max surprises himself by adopting the slickly dangerous persona he picked up from Cruise’s Vincent, and Miami Vice is anchored by the trust between Sonny and Rico. To simplify it, Heat is about the agony of infatuation, Collateral is about a marathon first date, and Miami Vice is about the understanding built into a long-term relationship. 

Like I said, I’ve been thinking about how to write this inevitable Michael Mann issue for a while. It took so long because of how daunted I felt even attempting to come up with an angle that felt fresh; his films have always felt so operatic and dense, which they are. People mythologize this man(n) and his oeuvre to an intimidating degree, which isn’t Mann’s fault, but nevertheless impacted how I perceived him. Until this past weekend, I’d only seen Heat, which I enjoyed quite a lot but felt I had no business discussing. Watching Collateral made me realize Mann is actually a big sweetheart who has a deep appreciation for human connection, while Miami Vice made me realize he’s a silly goof who knows how to laugh. (“Hola, chica.”) Sometimes the only way to make yourself less intimidated by boy movies is to look at them through a different lens, to allow yourself to recognize the romance in them. With this new perspective, I look forward to watching Adam Driver go on a date with a car or whatever’s going to happen in Ferrari. Buonissimo!

• More from me: I interviewed John Wilson about the How to With John Wilson finale. This show is hard to describe and recommend, but if you get it, you get it.

• Speaking of romance, I’m not doing a Passages issue, but I’ve now seen it twice, the first time with my pal Akosua (subscribe to her excellent newsletter Consumption Report!) and the second time with my pal Ariana (who true heads will remember from the Succession issue). I love it! I understand any criticisms of it, but to me it is Ira Sachs’ Interview with the Vampire and I’m currently in search of leads on those leopard print pants Tomas wears.

1. Men are predisposed to love Michael Mann; his name alone acts as a safety blanket for them.