(score: 10/10)
Yesterday, I watched "Stealing Wire" for the third time. After watching it this time, I felt depressed for a long time. Even once, as soon as Michael Mann's lens passed over the brightly-lit city of Los Angeles, it made my heart feel sad. Although almost all of Michael Mann's films have such a city ambiance, this one is the saddest. It is too difficult for Michael Man to surpass this film. Even if he adapts his previous brilliant TV series "Miami Storm" into a movie, it is impossible for him to have only seven points close to the level of "The Line of Fire". It is possible that he himself did not realize how many details and emotions he gave to "The Wire of Fire" inadvertently.
The first time I saw the Pirate FireWire was a few years ago. At that time, I saw the refreshment brought by technology. I was very excited when I hadn't seen many shooting action scenes at that time. Michael Mann is a skilled director who pays great attention to detail in his action scenes, so he needs to find an officer to give the actors shooting and shootout strategy courses. In the famous seven-minute shootout, the positioning, cover, rescue, charge and other actions of the two sides were impeccably precise. The strength of the vibrating perception is reflected in these senses of reality, without tricks. Michael Mann's violence is very clean, unless necessary, it is rarely seen to use blood to increase the effect.
The second time I watched it, the cool place was still very cool, but I realized that the focus of this movie is not the action at all. The two robbery action scenes together will not exceed 15 minutes in total, and this is a three-hour movie. . The script of the movie is nothing like a brilliant police movie, with constant and even chattering dialogue, long and trivial plots: including detective Vincent and the second robber Chris, a messy marriage life, robbers Scenes such as family gatherings between friends and police colleagues. This movie does not design either the robber or the police to be omnipotent like a general commercial movie. Although he was a very professional robber, the two robberies did not end in success, because at the beginning of the movie, the bastard Wengeru who killed the police officer unruly, laid the groundwork for the biggest failure. In the middle, Wengeru's revenge, leaked escape routes, and women all brought all kinds of troubles. This group of robbers is destined to be not the kind of robbers designed to control everything, such as the Eleven Arhats or Agent Jie. Sen Byrne or New York Police John McClan, this is not a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. They are more like the diamond thieves in Melville's "Red Circle". Although they are extremely professional, they failed to escape the gunshots of the fallen police. This is their fate. Michael Mann arranged it from the beginning. Only by struggling with this fate can we see the quality of these men.
Most importantly, I saw the friendship between the two men as rivals but respecting each other. At the end of the film, De Niro was shot and said: "I said I won't let you catch it", then stretched out his hand to Al Pacino, and Al Pacino shook it, reluctantly agreeing with this sentence Speaking and accepting De Niro's death, then tears slowly filled his eyes. At this time, the blood boiled and excited about the action scene had long since disappeared.
In addition, there are acting skills of Pacino and De Niro into the world. They played the two best guys on the two roads aggressively, and no one can steal the other person's play.
Looking at it this time, various details resurfaced in front of my eyes, but the strong and brave side of this group of men hides behind them, and the marriage crisis is not so clear. Suddenly, the hearts of these men all jumped to their eyes. Every man, whether it is a main character or a small and inconspicuous supporting role, the little bit of softness in their hearts is strangely highlighted.
Detective Al Pacino Vincent has always had no vision, but when analyzing the case and commanding his men, he showed extremely clear and rapid thinking. He was able to observe the scene in a short time and assign tasks to his opponents. He quickly saw the enemy’s motives. He spoke loudly, always used a strong force against informants and criminals, and even yelled at the lover who invited his wife home: "You can fuck my wife because She invites you to come. You can sit on her sofa, in her ex-husband’s ridiculously post-modern design house, but you are not allowed to watch my TV!” The last sentence screamed, eyes staring. It's like eating people. The man was jittery by his aura, cowering as if he was about to strangle himself.
Vincent’s inner weakness lies in his inability to share the success or failure of his work with his relatives, because regardless of success or failure, there is a homicide, a corpse, one pervert, and he cannot tell his relatives about this. He was finally unable to maintain his marriage because of this, and he appeared in the movie as his third wife. His wife hoped that he could commute to and from work like a normal civil servant, and then "share" a day's work. At least this shows that he was "present" in this damn family life. Vincent was angry: "Am I I have to say to you when I get off work, oh, guess what happened today. I put my baby in the microwave and bake it because the baby is too noisy. Come on, let’s share.” The wife heard this. The words were very helpless and the roots of the teeth were itchy, just saying "You actually live with your corpses every day". And Vincent can only hide these ugliness in his heart, "let these keep me sensitive in handling cases" and let work surround himself.
He can’t handle his work and feelings properly, because he is an excellent agent who works in the dark. What he always gives up is family. He is even closer to his small TV, because when he gets home, it can’t be right. The wife complained, but she could only turn on the TV. Vincent rescued the stepdaughter who was sad and cut her wrist because of the disharmony of family life. He hugged his wife in the hospital and the pager rang. He took a look. This time he didn't get up immediately, but said that he wanted to stay with him. But his wife still understood the workaholic and told him to go to work. Vincent got up and hurried down the stairs to the scene quickly.
De Niro's Neil is as powerful as Vincent, but he is more orderly, speaks less emotionally but loudly, his clothes are always neat and tidy, he pays attention to principles, and revenge must be reported. At the end of the film, he watched I looked at my beloved woman, and at Vincent who was chasing him, he could only give up this relationship. Why didn't he be a hero and crashed into the car and went out? He is a principled thief and he needs to get out. He abducted the highway and decided to find Wengeru for revenge instead of taking his beloved person to go away directly insured, which shows that he is a professional and rule-speaking robber. Because he knew what he was, he said when the restaurant refused Vincent’s advice not to rob him, "I do what I do best, go rob, you do what you do best, come and catch someone like me." He knows how to advance and retreat. During the action, he heard a little noise in the car in the distance, and immediately became vigilant and gave up the action; he was willing to take care of everything about his friends, like a patriarch, and even helping his brother-in-law’s wife cheating on such housework. Of course, he also needs to be cruel when necessary. Wengeru kills people without principle, which will lead to unnecessary hunts and troubles. He smashed Wengeru's head on the table in the restaurant and wanted to be in the restaurant. Kill this guy outside, but he didn't succeed. But in the end a few bullets were sent into this guy's belly. After the boss of the investment company tricked him with waste paper, he picked up the phone and called, and said cruelly: "The one who listened to me on the other end of the phone is already a dead person."
Neal's weakness, like Vincent, is also a kind of loneliness that life cannot be shared. He himself did not want to admit it at first. When he met the girl Edie, he said: "I'm alone, but not lonely." (I'm alone, not lonely.) But where he lives is by the endless sea In the empty room, there is no furniture except for the sofa. The art design of these scenes is completely in line with his lonely state of mind. After meeting Edie, he quietly left, and did not contact again for a long time. At a family gathering between friends, he found that he had not yet gotten a family, and was a little sad. He suddenly realized that he was in fact anxious for a bond of affection, so he got up. , Called Edie, and started planning to go far. In fact, he understands mentally that to be a professional criminal, it is best to be "clean", not to be a mess, not to drag his family, and he can fly away when things happen, but what's the use? He is a man and not an iron man. People will not become numb after a long time, but will look forward to a feeling more and more intensely, so that they can rely on the weakest part of their heart-men of course also need to rely on sometimes. This is where Neil is more sad than Vincent, at least Vincent has been married three times. During the conversation in the cafe, Vincent asked: "In this way, you never want an ordinary life?" Neil laughed: "Then what the hell is it? BarbeQ and the ball game?"
Neil dismissed ordinary life. Gu, but unhesitatingly wanted to take Yidi to escape and "open his own design company" for Yidi to be an ordinary person. This is the contradiction that this big man can't solve, his weakness.
Chris, Neal’s closest friend, is exquisite in various robberies. He can use common materials to make powerful explosives that explode the armor of the money carrier, and can cooperate with Neal to cover each other in a gun battle. He was a very big man, yelled at his wife Shalin, had a grumpy temper, and liked to gamble. He threw a lot of banknotes from the robbery into the casino, and he didn't lose too much. He ended up better. He was injured but eventually escaped. Although his wife cheated because of his gambling and temper, she still loved him deeply. She only moved her palm quietly on the balcony, and Chris knew the balcony. There was an ambush policeman behind, so he left calmly. His weakness is also that he loves his wife so much. After he was injured, Neil arranged to escape, but he only said: "I won't go without Shalin." When the injury happened just a little bit, he drove away from the protector. The house went to look for his wife in spite of the danger, until she saw Shalin personally tell her that the crisis was in danger with a gesture, the reunion smile solidified on her face, and then she left with tears.
In the process of robbing the bank, Bridan, the black driver who was temporarily hired to replace him, had very few scenes and died very quickly, but in several scenes about him, we clearly see his distress. After he was released from prison, he was introduced to work in a restaurant, but the restaurant owner seemed to be calling a slave. His girlfriend did not dislike him, he felt that he was very useless, his girlfriend only said "I am proud of you" and he almost cried. But he couldn't bear the repeated depreciation, ridicule, and mental insults of the restaurant owner, because he was still a strong man. When Neil found him, he decided to give up this shit job and join the group. Seeing the news of his death on TV, his girlfriend was dumbfounded.
There was also Treyo, the partner who was beaten so badly that he could not move and leaked his escape route. He saw Neil holding a gun and questioning himself. The first thing he asked was how his wife was. Neil said she was dead, and he moaned softly. After a while, his expression was extremely painful, and then he told Neil that the people who came threatened to kill his wife, and he only revealed the secret. It was not that he himself was beaten to reveal the secret, and the woman was also the weakness of this tough guy.
Only this seemingly trivial and lengthy, rather than extremely compact and tense script, allows men to show such a rich texture in a movie that looks extremely hard on the surface. In the movie, they almost always shed or shed tears, when the weakest part of their hearts is pierced.
However, the reason why I love this movie the most is the point I saw the second time. Two men with the same "heat" but different paths share a friendship with each other but never become friends; the favorite The scene is still Al Pacino and De Niro talking about their dreams in a cafe. One dreams of a criminal he has caught, one dreams of drowning in the water, and then discusses the meaning of the dream; favorite scene After Al Pacino killed De Niro, his slowly moist eyes—he killed the enemy, lost his confidant, and had to stay alone.
Watching such a movie that usually reminds people of being tough, brave and even really going to robbery with a gun, but thinking of these, probably shows that I don’t have the toughness and wisdom of these men, but I certainly have and cannot get rid of them. Of fragility. In this movie, Michael Mann embodies the weakness of these men in such a nuanced way. He knows very well what men who are outstanding to the apex are like. When Aunt Gong Li starred in "Miami Storm", she should understand that this film certainly didn't have any good results, because Michael Mann was not good at shooting women, but she gave women such a heavy role.
It's a lot of tugging. Recently, when I encounter a good movie, I always troll a lot.
In addition, listening to the original soundtrack of "Stealing Fire" and knocking on the article, I accidentally discovered that the rock music and orchestral soundtrack arranged by Michael Mann was as frustrating as the final fate of the men in the film.
Movie:
[stolen FireWire] Heat (1995)
Director / Screenwriter: Michael Mann Michael Mann
Country / Region: United States
Production / Distributor: Warner Bros. Warner Bros.
Starring: Al Pacino Al Pacino, Robert Denis Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, etc.
View more about Heat reviews
