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Mar 21, 2018Nursebob rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Despite the film’s ample artillery and a crackling pace that rarely rests for a moment, writer/director Michael Mann’s 3-hour policier epic is not as concerned with hardware and strategy as it is with focusing on the psychological landscape between the good guys and the bad. Thief McCauley (De Niro in fine form) and policeman Hanna (Pacino, ditto) are two sides of a very dark coin and Mann drives this symmetry home every chance he gets—both men are obsessive perfectionists; both are ruthless in their pursuits; and although one has chosen the high road and one the low road, both of their paths come with dire personal consequences starting with an inability to love unconditionally. Stylishly shot in midnight colours with a moody soundtrack that stretches from Brian Eno and Moby to Hungarian composer Györy Ligeti and the Kronos Quartet, this is a film weighted with pessimism and broken dreams where long passages of introspection are shattered by scenes of grim violence including a deadly shoot-out in downtown Los Angeles so realistic it’s been used to train soldiers and police officers alike. Val Kilmer co-stars as McCauley’s right-hand man—a jarring combination of cold-blooded robber and emotionally needy husband—and Diane Venora plays Hanna’s live-in girlfriend, a woman who weathers his many absences with sour grace while her daughter (a teen-aged Natalie Portman) slowly comes undone. Mesmerizing from those brutal opening scenes to an unexpectedly moving coda.