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Michael Mann, whose new thriller, "Collateral," opens today, is no stranger to the crime genre. Mann got his start in television, writing episodes for "Police Story," a serial about the lives of Los Angeles police officers that aired fewer than 100 episodes. In 1975, Mann began writing episodes for the more successful cult favorite, "Starsky and Hutch." At the same time, Mann was writing episodes for a Jack Palance vehicle called "Bronk," produced by "All In The Family" star Carroll O'Connor. The show lasted for only a single season.
Mann's first real breakthrough did not come until 1978, when he began a collaboration with über-producer Aaron Spelling on "Vega$," starring the veteran TV actor Robert Urich and Tony Curtis, a Hollywood staple whose big-screen work included Stanley Kubrick's "Spartacus" and Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot." "Vega$," which followed the exploits of a Sin City private investigator, ran for three seasons and led to Mann's work as a writer on "Miami Vice," a tongue-in-cheek cop show starring the sockless Don Johnson, Phillip Michael Thomas and an alligator named Elvis. Mann followed up his work on "Miami Vice" with his first major outing as a feature writer and director, an adaptation of Thomas Harris' "Red Dragon" called "Manhunter." The film starred Brian Cox in the role of Hannibal Lecter, five years before Anthony Hopkins made the role famous in Jonathan Demme's "The Silence of the Lambs" and 16 years before "Red Dragon" was readapted by Brett Ratner and "Silence of the Lambs" penman Ted Tally. "Manhunter" also features Joan Allen and Dennis Farina and failed to recoup its cost, grossing an anemic $8.6 million at the box office.
Success as a director finally came for Mann in the form of "The Last of The Mohicans," an adaptation of the novel by James Fenimore Cooper which Mann admitted to not having read. Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe took the leads, a man and a woman torn away from each other by the viciousness of the French and Indian War, and together they immortalized the line: "Stay alive! I will find you!" The film has dated badly; Day-Lewis' full-on slow motion runs are laughable; and the famous line quickly nose-dived into late night comedy fodder. However, the film was both a critical and box office success, and allowed Mann the opportunity to write and direct his most ambitious project to date: an L.A. crime epic called "Heat," which boasted the first shared scene between the screen legends Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro.
DeNiro and Pacino had worked on "The Godfather: Part II" together, but their characters were separated by an ocean and a generation, with DeNiro playing a youthful Vito Corleone. Much was made of the pairing before the film's release, but in fact the two actors share only about five minutes of screen time in a movie that goes past the three hour mark. Mann's nearly operatic gangster flick also featured performances from the likes of Val Kilmer, Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd and Jon Voight, forced to don ridiculous makeup to play an aging crime boss. Still, the 1995 film's $174 million international gross solidified Mann as an able filmmaker and a sound studio investment.
In 1999, Mann directed "The Insider," starring a still fresh-faced Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. The film detailed the tribulations of a real-life tobacco company whistle-blower, Jeffrey Wigand, and his relationship with the "60 Minutes" anchor Mike Wallace. "The Insider" garnered Oscar nominations for both Crowe and Mann as well as for screenwriter Eric Roth, who owns the dubious distinction of writing both "Forrest Gump" and "The Horse Whisperer" for visionary Dante Spinotti, the cinematographer behind the gritty but beautiful "L.A. Confidential" and who also photographed "Manhunter," "Heat" and "The Last of the Mohicans." "The Insider" opened in the same year that saw the releases of P.T. Anderson's "Magnolia," Sam Mendes' "American Beauty" and Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich," three of the best films to come out of the '90s, and it easily holds its own alongside them as an excellent film. It's the closest thing Mann has made to a masterpiece.
After "The Insider" Mann took a three-year hiatus, returning in 2002 to deliver only his fourth directorial effort in 10 years, a biography of Muhammad Ali. The film, aptly entitled "Ali," showcased a bulky Will Smith in the title role. "Ali" marked a return to box-office failure for Mann, opening to a lukewarm reception from both audiences and critics. It grossed enough to cover only half its $100 million production budget. Will Smith and Jon Voight (again in heavy makeup) both earned Oscar nominations as the fast-talking pugilist and the fast-talking sportscaster Howard Cossell, respectively.
Now, with solid critical buzz gathering behind his return to the crime genre with "Collateral," Michael Mann may be poised to teach a lesson to some of his more prolific colleagues, one learned over diligent 30-year career: Sometimes, a little patience is worth the wait.
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