L.A. Takedown

Yeah I know every review will inevitably compare this film to its far bigger budget remake. Upon watching the two films back-to-back though I have to say that there are a few things I do enjoy better about this slimmer and more streamlined film than the more bloated HEAT.

For one, although I'm a huge fan of De Niro and Pacino, I found Scott Plank and Alex MacArthur much more serious and believable in their roles as far younger up-and-comers with something to prove. MacArthur especially exudes a calm intensity with a little more (albeit tactically restrained) fire under the collar than you'd usually see in a character like this.

Secondly, I love the supporting cast here. Instead of the likes of Danny Trejo, Jeremy Piven, and Hank Azaria, we get a little more of a B-crew with some solid work from character actors Juan Fernandez (SALVADOR), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, and FLASH GORDON himself Sam J. Jones as some jerk at the bar. Instead of Wes Studi and Ted Levene, we get Richard Chaves (PREDATOR) and Daniel Baldwin. Perennial "that guy" character actor Xander Berkeley plays Waingrow much more as a sniveling wannabe than an actual tough-guy, but I think it actually works better and gives more menace to the character.

Oddly enough this film crosses over a lot with the cheeseball Spanish ABYSS knockoff ENDLESS DESCENT in that both movies feature Ely Pouget (who turns in some great work) as the leading lady and open with a shot of the protagonist coming out of a hangover with one foot sticking out from under the sheets. They were both made the same year too! Go figure.

TAKEDOWN sorely misses the violence, class, and action of HEAT but still has some pretty heavy stuff considering the budget and the time in which it was made. Mann handles the bank robbery as well as anything you would have seen on "Crime Story" and doesn't skimp on the weaponry in the big set-piece shootouts. I was actually delighted to see them cut out much of the romance and needless character development that HEAT got so wrapped up in (especially in terms of the cook/getaway driver, here played by an extra as opposed to the distractingly Allstate-ed up Dennis Haysbert).

There's a few plot differences, but not many as several scenes are line-by-line the same. The ending's a bit of a delight though and much more of a surprise than what we got in HEAT. My only beef with this film has to do with the bad sound and flat TV cinematography. Worth tracking down if you can find a decent copy.

It is great to see a low budget version of a great film. Michael Mann's 1995 masterpiece Heat was actually conceived way back in the 80s by the director Michael Mann. He decided to make it then with the limited budget he had. The scenes and even dialogues are verbatim but it is great to see what a bigger budget can get- from better thespians of the class of Pacino and Deniro to some amazing locations. This is a good film for film students to sit and analyze.

This movie is basically the same movie as HEAT. To say that this movie is garbage and that HEAT is a masterpiece is plain stupid, but that's almost how the IMDB users voted. Last time I checked this movie had an average rating of 5.7 while HEAT had 7.8. Anyway I don't need any Pacino or De Niro to recognize a good movie. HEAT might be a little better but it's not THAT much better. Had I seen this movie first I don't know if I had bothered seing HEAT, but sadly the big remakes get all the attention. Soon the remake of another excellent movie "manhunter" will come up in the theatres, and it will probably make people forget about how good the original is and if there are people that still haven't seen it, they will only see the remake. I don't think you should do remakes of movies that are less than 20 or 30 years old. I think I'm against almost any remake. If the original is good then why do a remake? and if it's bad well even less reason to do it...Anyway both movies are good and I like them both even if I don't like the remake phenomenon.

This is the original version of what we now know as the modern classic Heat. If you watch LA Takedown and Heat, you will see many of the scenes paralleled. LA Takedown is not a great movie, but it does make an interesting companion to its superior counterpart. Worth watching for this reason alone.

Ok so standalone you may be underwhelmed by this flick but considering it's a low budget quick turnaround straight to TV movie that's basically an extended pilot for a never made series then it is it's a huge cut above the normal. You can see how Mann took The Thief to an idea for a Miami Vice style TV show that subsequently got mashed into a TV movie and from there you can see how Heat then developed from there in line with his career - it's fascinating. It's like when they find paintings under the paintings of art masterpieces - this was the blueprint. Although Mann's usual blue palette is ironically absent. So much of the script and set pieces are the same, it's incredible to watch this and then Heat immediately after, it's like having an aparetif. Standalone it's a 3 out of 10. As part of a development, a sketch, a chance to see effectively a rough cut of a masterpiece then it's a 10. Acting is very poor in parts, I like what he later added to the themes and characters in Heat when he had the budget. It largely doesn't feel like a Mann movie to be honest, so much of his usual trademarking is missing but of course he nailed it with the remake and that was such a Mann film. All I can say is this is the perfect film to watch before Heat, it won't spoil it, it will enhance it tremendously. You can see how smart Mann was in taking all the things that were right with this - from character names to certain scenes done better/bigger to weaving in huge character arcs to otherwise lesser or even absent characters. Score was mostly terrible but even some of that is faintly recognisable in Heat as he simply developed it (shootout scene for example). Basically it's the sketch of the work of art so you get what you pay for. Michaels character by the way was probably the stand out in this film.