MovieChat Forums > Blackhat (2015) Discussion > Longtime Mann fan...why don't I love thi...

Longtime Mann fan...why don't I love this film?

posted 8 years ago by mariusar
8 replies | jump to latest

I go way back with Michael Mann - from Manhunter, Miami Vice, Crime Story even LA Takedown, all the way to his classic run of films: Last Mohican, Heat, Collateral and The Insider. I found Ali to be a fine biopic and even saw some good stuff in Public Enemies. As for the Miami Vice film? That one was not as compelling to me, not since I am such of fan of the groundbreaking TV series. The MV film certainly had style and panache, but just missed the mark IMO. Maybe because, for me, Johnson and Michael-Thomas will ALWAYS be Crockett and Tubbs.

Still, I don't think there can be any real, reasonable debate that Mann is a terrific filmmaker, one with a body of work most people would kill for. His sense of visual and audio aesthetics as well as his well-documented commitment to exceptional production values all result in fantastic movie experiences IMO.

So it's fair to say I love pretty much everything the guy has done.

After all these years, Mann should only be getting better and better...at the very least his efforts should hopefully reach par with what he's done in the past.

Why then did I find that Blackhat just failed to keep me engaged? Help me out here please.

VISUALLY: The film looks great. Some excellent [and less common] visuals of the city I now reside in, Hong Kong as well as other parts of Southeast Asia. Overall, the film does look great.

AUDIO: A bit subdued I thought, especially for a Mann film where the score is often so critical, but still never irritating or overbearing IMO.

PRODUCTION VALUES: Typically top-notch for a Mann film. Everything from the choreography of the firefights to the character props and locations rang true. And no one does gun battle audio and firefights like Mann does. And yes, even the linguistic quality [and distinction] of both the Cantonese and Mandarin dialog spoken in the film was spot on.

ACTING: Here maybe is where things start to go a little south. Don't get me wrong, everyone involved is...competent. No real cringe-worthy performances to be found, as usual in a Mann film. Everyone does a reasonably good job overall.

STORY: Perhaps this is what caused the biggest disconnect for me in Blackhat. I am no stranger to tech, being a corporate whore tech manager for decades. While obviously familiar with computer tech, I certainly do not profess any kind of hacking knowledge, though I had no trouble understanding any of the techno-babble.

I think it's pretty obvious that one of Mann's favorite themes/plot devices is the classic cat and mouse chase. Smart good guys chasing smart bad guys. Black and white on the surface, but oftentimes with moral or ethical ambiguities making things more complicated and, I daresay, more realistic.

Do others feel as I do that one of the main problems with Blackhat is that the cat and mouse game just seems so empty?

There is no clearly defined, explicitly antagonist, at least not until the final act. Just a bunch of good guys chasing some nebulous, always-2-steps- ahead, high-tech ghost for nearly 2 hours before Mr. Big comes on screen. Granted, this may be result of the core of the story - that in the modern, high-tech world, the bad guys aren't always in plain site. Is the biggest problem with Blackhat the nature of the material itself? That even a talented filmmaker and storyteller like Mann just can't translate the world of Blackhat into a truly compelling film experience?

I said before I found all the performances competent. But is it just me or have I become spoiled by Michael Mann, spoiled to the point where I really now expect not just competent acting, but truly engaging, bravura performances from the cast in his films?

Chris Hemsworth is OK here. He's perfect for Thor and I think he is a competent actor. There's that word again. But can he deliver performances on par a similar level to those turned in by Pacino, DeNiro, Cruise, Day-Lewis, Peterson, Crowe, Depp and even Smith? Sorry, no, Chris, at least not yet.

I am totally rambling here, but my original request remains - can folks here help clarify for me why I feel Blackhat just doesn't quite measure up?

cheers and TIA, especially if you read the whole thing... :)
-mariusar

--
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

[–] guigui-paul 8 years ago

"There is no clearly defined, explicitly antagonist, at least not until the final act."

That's what i found interesting and rather new for a Mann film...in all of others Mann's films you know the antagonish from the beginning or at the half of the movie...THIEF, THE KEEP, MANHUNTER, HEAT, COLLATERAL, etc
Here the threat is a "nobody", it's the hi tech, cold world that is somewhat menacing, threatening...the opening scene for example, the empty trade market, the camera in the restaurant scene, etc. Some of BLACKHAT's scenes are led by the computer screen, that's what i found a by surprising and "dry" for a Mann film, because i like so much when he is shooting scenes in the streets, in locations, and not indoors scenes like in this film...but it was part of the screenplay and new thematics. I still like the film (saw it three times in theaters and one more time on Blu Ray)!

"Chris Hemsworth is OK here. He's perfect for Thor and I think he is a competent actor. There's that word again. But can he deliver performances on par a similar level to those turned in by Pacino, DeNiro, Cruise, Day-Lewis, Peterson, Crowe, Depp and even Smith? Sorry, no, Chris, at least not yet."

I like the Nick/Lien relationship in the film, the way it evolves fast against the more and more lethal forces threatening to destroy the team, the way the love and friendship help Nick to build himself, his own identity and freedom, in the story.

[–] mariusar 8 years ago

@guigui-Paul: Sorry for the delayed reply!

Indeed, you make some interesting observations about the cold, "dry" nature of the subject matter in Blackhat and I definitely agree with you on that, though now that I think about it, this rather sterile feel may just be part of the reason why I just didn't enjoy the film as much as you did.

I think your reply has helped to crystallize in my mind that, for me, the subject matter just didn't translate well enough to truly engage me in the same way that Mann's other films have in the past. Now that I really think about it, have there been ANY truly compelling, top-quality films about the whole hacking milieu?

Honestly, I can't think of any right now. So perhaps this particular subject is even beyond Mann's ability to handle. Perhaps no one can...yet.

Of course, if I am blanking out on any great films about this particular topic, I hope folks here will chime in :)

Intersting comments on the romance in the film. I thought it was fine in and of itself - no issues for me since they obviously had known each other for a very long time and clearly there was probably some mutual attraction in their past. And of course, the actress playing Lien was quite gorgeous so that was a bonus.

Thanks for taking time to reply!

cheers!
-mariusar

--
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

[–] One-Eyed_Jack 8 years ago

Because it's not good? Sometimes things are just sh!t. 

[–] mariusar 8 years ago

True enough and fair enough. Obviously.

Still, my point is not to say that Blackhat "sucked". It didn't. In fact, were Blackhat credited to another director, it is possible I might have enjoyed the film a bit more.

But I do find that duds are a bit tougher to swallow when they come from someone with as amazing a career track record as Mann.

Which is why I asked "why I don't love this film" originally - I was hoping for other folks' perspectives.

It's a good film for all the reasons in my OP.

Just somehow not a typically great Mann film IMO.

cheers,
-mariusar

--
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

[–] HankTuff 8 years ago

This movie isn't at the expected high level for a M Mann movie. I agree.

We don't know under what circumstances he had to make the movie. Maybe they told him to make a movie about hackers, which he isn't an expert in. Maybe they told him it has to have Asian characters and take place in Asia in order to cover that market.

Hank Tuff - when the going gets rough!

[–] sankar777 8 years ago

First, I'm a big fan of Michael Mann too: Manhunter, Thief, Collateral, Heat are fantastic films. Heat specially is a big inspiration for me.

I was really eager to watch this movie, not only I'm a big Mann fan, I'm a big technology fan and I love the way technology has been used (mostly in the east, I admit) to portray loneliness in cities.

And what hit me is how poorly the movie is from a technical standpoint;
You get severe dialogue problems: Chinese audio is clearly dubbed, and not mixed, it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Audio Problems: some sound effects are extremely out of place, like the glass breaking in the bar fight

You got Design problems: Viola with that over-the-top make up and wig, is even offensive of how bad it looks

You got Color Correction problems: every scene in the movie looks like a different movie, colors make no sense most of the time.

The movie even ruins the fantastic "inside the chip" scene by reusing it a second time in a way that makes no sense in the scene.

All of that, obviously, could be "endured" for a good story, but the movie feels edited all wrong.

Chris character just comes as extremely rude and childish, you have no reason to care for him and his freedom. He just feels like a loner who don't really need to be outside, hell, on the scene where they offer him to spring him out of jail, I was expecting him to say that he likes being there.
His Chinese counterpart is, well, an ass too.
and the girl is, well, in computer terms... null.

The script makes no sense, the scenes flow with little connection between them sometimes.

I remember that in one of the scenes, when they arrive in China and look at the "destruction" of reactor, the camera is focusing on the security guard guy, in slow motion, and his sad face reaction to all of it... While Chris is just in the background. I mean, what sense does it make?

And I could go on and on... This production has problems that for me, almost sound like Mann didn't really wanted to do the movie and did it as fast and crude as he could.
And that's a Shame, because for me that was the PERFECT theme for Mann to work on. I walked into the movie expecting an "Western Ghost in the Shell" and I know Mann could've had delivered if he wished.

ps: *beep* to be quite honest, I feel bad that this movie wasn't great... and even worse by saying bad things about it.

[–] themidgarzolom 7 years ago

Great points. I have great respect for most of Mann's work that I've seen, but this suffers from all of the problems that you listed and then some.

I really feel that Hemsworth is all sorts of wrong for this type of role and also that they could have benefited from writing his character more interesting and multi-dimensional. The "relationship" between Hathaway and Lien seemed way too spontaneous, forced and illogical, as well.

The main beef of the story seemed standard cyber-crime/drama fare. It wasn't offensively bad and even had an interesting turn here and there, but the plot mostly wasn't as engrossing as what I've come to expect from other Mann films.

[–] mikeyflatley 7 years ago

It wuz bad from getgo

I really wanna like it, it's good topic

too much fightin and gunz in a hackin movie

Hacker can fight and lookz like thor. I can understand brakin stereotypez but dis is like castin Stallone as a hacker, not too realistic

Dumbest scene ever, at airport, FBI drivez from behind bad guyz but instead of firing from behind they drive in front 2 get shot

Nobody care dat someone is holdin a machine gun at final scene until it wuz actually fired

Thor showz up wid a screwdriver in a gunfight

Why is any1 even fightin in person when they can hack each otherz computrz? Don't understand why any hacker wanna meet in person.

Werd 2 ur mudda, bruddafckka