Blackhat or How Michael Mann Made Another Good Movie That Nobody Saw

A New Chapter

    11 years and a couple days have passed since I first ventured into the new year of 2015. A marker in my life as I moved away from family and friends and had to deal with a world unknown. Time passing since and life hasn't been any easier but at this moment, looking back I see that I had a true sense of pure optimism. It would only be a brief moment where being alive seemed to be going alright for the most part since the world didn't look as though it was on the verge of ending. What also made it exciting was the fact that there was a brand spanking new Michael Mann film coming out.

    Since the last film of his that I reviewed was Miami Vice, I can say from that moment in the mid 2000's to now that I have been a far more involved fan of the man's work. Reading more about him in the few books that I could get my hands on as well as indulging in his filmography. Even checking out some of his early work like the TV prison film The Jericho Mile. Which I also wrote a review on this site. This fanaticism building to this particular moment in time that any film fan would be excited for.

    And so I ventured and saw the film in a small crowd and came out having to ponder but more on that later. 

 

The Teaser Trailer was pretty good

The Film

     Now there are currently three different versions of this film available for watch thanks to Arrow Video. There is the US Theatrical, The International version, and a Directors Cut. For this review, I will discuss the US Theatrical to reflect the movie I saw back in 2015 as well as the recently released Directors Cut that was officially released in 2023.

    Funny enough, this is not the first time in which I have indulged with both a theatrical and directors cut to a Michael Mann film. There is also the pair of DVDs that I had rented late one night of both the theatrical and directors cut of Michael Mann's Manhunter. Though the difference between the two after watching them as a double feature was so minuscule that it was tough to truly say if there was a difference; nonetheless it was worth the time because Manhunter is such a cool fucking movie. Man I love that one.

The Two I Rented

    The film opens up by showing off the big blue world we know as Earth interconnected as the title of the film appears and then we zoom into the world that ultimately becomes a Chinese nuclear reactor. Looking like a normal day for the Scientists at work and then we slowly dive into the computer itself.

    Now, movie hacking has always been the goofiest scene in any movie that went about it in portraying it. From the low lows of the Sandra Bullock film The Net and the forever charming Hackers to the nitty gritty dumbness of Hugh Jackman shaking his ass while hacking himself up a worm that will go about in hacking in Swordfish. It just seems that whenever a movie has to show someone committing the act of hacking that it has always been a challenge for filmmakers to rise up and accomplish filming this in the dumbest way possible. This film though delivers a fresh take on this.

    We do not see the endless finger strokes on a keyboard showcasing the precise and amazing skill of a hacker at work. Instead, we are transported to a fantastic visual treat of data flowing through the microscopic infrastructure of computer chips and wires that all starts with a USB stick being inserted into a USB slot. Traveling through these highly intricate systems and watching a high speed piece of data separate itself and travel into the operating system of the previously mentioned nuclear reactor. Then seeing that its a hack that causes the failure of a turbine and soon the stakes are set with an explosion at the nuclear reactor that rocks the world news cycle. Soon after this, another hack occurs with the price of Soy Bean futures increasing due to the hack. The two seemingly unrelated but are they?

    The mayhem that both these events cause forces Chinese and American intelligence agencies to work together to figure out what the hell happened. After locating how the hackers got their way in the system, it turns out the hack was using a piece of code written by the Chinese office Chen Dawai (Played by Leehom Wang) with a buddy of his from college. Enter Scene: Chris Hemsworth as Hacker Extraordinaire Nicholas Hathaway.

    He's currently doing time and gets a work-pass to help out the FBI and PLA to figure this out and if he helps find the culprit then he gets released from prison. Their investigation has them traveling the world as the team uncovers a global conspiracy involving the want of this hacker mastermind to manipulate the certain destruction of certain areas in 3rd world countries in order to manipulate the stock market once more to make a few more dollars. Rounding out the cast is the always lovely Viola Davis, Holt McCallany, John Ortiz, and Tang Wei.

    What follows is what one expects from a Michael Mann film. People going through a process to figure out the why which then involves gunfights, entanglements of forbidden love, and that slick post 2000 Michael Mann digital sheen to it all but let us save the opinion for later and let us travel onward to the directors cut.

The Directors Cut

    It's always fascinating to see a new version of a film like Blackhat. Re-watching the Theatrical has me feeling like the story I remember was now rushing itself to get to the good parts as soon as possible and set up the high stakes right off the bat. Which now after watching this new version reveals the biggest difference between them.

    The scene that starts off the original version of the film is with the nuclear reactor exploding is now an event that happens later on in the film. The directors cut starts off with solely focusing on the cyber attack of the sudden increase of soy beans futures and the global ramifications of this sudden event. Starting the film at this moment is this strange quiet before the storm. It's a scene that exists but now sets a different tone. Starting off in this eerily empty room with all these screens tracking numbers for various speculation and stocks that you have seen filled to the brim with people selling and buying but now, it just exists. This cold room of brutal capitalism that will never end even as people are not there to be part of it. Sent a real chill down my spine seeing this hacking scene start off the film.

    Obviously not the biggest stakes for a film to start off with but it creates a much more grounded world as an event like this means a whole lot more in our capitalistic driven world where stock market manipulation must be controlled so that those in the know will have access to the profits and not those who cause the manipulations for their own ends whether nefarious or not.

    We are then introduced to the idea of a RAT (Rat Access Tool) being used covertly to manipulate the prices which causes an international partnership to occur between China and the United States intelligent agencies to go about and solve. The tension rising and rising as they travel around the world and get into a gunfight and then BOOM! Reactor explosion. A real big Whoa moment in the middle of all this when this happens because now the stakes have officially been raised Then the movie, for the most part, follows along with the original version as far as moving through the same machinations to reach the same ending. 

    Though the end of this cut seems to fly quicker to the final confrontation between the big evil hacker and Hathaway. No build up and just a simple “You want the money then meet up.” In the Theatrical, there was at least this sense of uneasiness between the two having to meet up since the prearranged site was compromised and now they would have to change location at the last minute. This new location being a place where at the same time was this religious event that I will get into later but that's just gone now and it goes straight to the confrontation. Same ending as the theatrical though with Hathaway and his girl heading off into their future as fugitives on the run.

   With this complete change of structure though comes a film that feels far more natural in telling its story. Gradually, as an audience, we learn more and more about the ramifications of this one event that then leads into the real consequences of these events until we ultimately discover, along with the characters in the film as all good detectives movies have you moving at the same pace as the characters in solving the mystery, the end justification for why hacker mastermind does what he does.  

    This was a real solid version of the film that probably would have worked out better for everyone if this had been released in theaters and not the actual theatrical release. The ramifications of this might have been life altering as 2015 turned out to be a real bad year by November.

What Does It All Add Up To?

    Leaving that theater, I didn't feel like I saw a terrible movie but it wasn't as great as I had hoped. Though it was also strange to see the initial mixed reception of the film when it first came out. Obviously this initial release wasn't necessarily going to set the world on fire but even in this strange form, there was a whole lot here to enjoy. 

    The overall aesthetic that Michael Mann has been working towards with digital filmmaking reaches a strong pivotal moment in this film. The mood that comes across from the visuals along with the music and performances are such that for the most part, it all works. It's all coherent and none of it feels cheap. A lot of digital filmmaking these days looks cheap because it seems that with digital it is easier to cut around corners to not put as much into the surrounding environments. The faux worlds of the digital creation that meanders itself into trying to be something wonderful and extraterrestrial but fails to convey anything but artifice. The difference here is that Mann isn't interested in artificial worlds for his digital vision. He is far more intrigued in whats going on now and wanting to get as close to it as possible with these digital cameras. To create something far more immersive to what we see today which also leaves me wondering about the possibility of the story itself being far too close to real world narratives for audiences to engage with.

    In part, this narrative was inspired by the Stuxnet cyber attack on Iran's nuclear program. This odd unknown origin piece of code that caused insane damage and has been verified but not verified to be a country backed attack on another country. All real cloak and dagger shit. Something like that can't be made without needing the audience to be right there from the start. This isn't a movie that wants to hold your hand. It doesn't want to stop and talk out the plot for you to reengage with the material when you happened to have stopped paying attention. This is crafted for you to either get with it or not but as mentioned before, maybe that was the issue.  

    Stock market manipulation by rogue terrorists whose interests is not contained or drawn from a sense of moral or traditional religious fanaticism isn't one that, at least at the time, American had an interest in. Compared to what came out in wide release that same week, Clint Eastwood's American Sniper, it's not hard to tell how America was more interested in the supposed true story of Chris Kyle running and gunning in the Middle East than anything involving a cyber attack on Soy Bean trading.

    Which looking back now to the two films, the all too real Blackhat has shown the true ramifications of stock manipulation as seen the 2016 Administrations failure of protecting Soy Bean farmers as well as various narratives of stolen elections via hacked voting terminals and such. Data security is one topic that has become far more enduring and everyday for everyone now than it ever has been while the popularity of American Sniper has dwindled into one of those 'We really liked this?' kind of movies but I digress.

    Blackhat is a film that doesn't have a happy ending. Nobody wins. There is no exit. A small group of cyber terrorists lose but that doesn't mean that it won't happen again or that all crime has stopped. It's just this one particular story. Though even with my enjoyment of the film, I have to admit that there was a problem I had with the film.

Issues 

    As mentioned before, the end sequence to this film is really great. Shot on site in Jakarta and involves this religious procession where all these people with torches march together all the while the main characters are walking the opposite way. Its a great set up with no real conclusion. 

    The villain in the film isn't one that has any other motive beyond trying to make a few dollars. A couple more million from the original heist he pulled off in the beginning. And I suppose this is truer to life as we watch billionaires with seemingly dead eye stares and terrible taste parade on television screaming about the beautiful virtues of capitalism but for a movie, I think there needs to be something more. What makes a great villain in a movie compared to a movie counterpart to a real capitalist.

    Though this wanting of more could be seen as needing to create a facade and inauthentic character to fulfill this void I have in the film. It's a tough call because the way this movie is tells me it should be this but staying true to the film, it is what it is.

     An aside, I remember there was this thread on forum for this film on IMDB that made fun of the fact that Hemsworth had magazines wrapped around him with tape and it goes to show how education is a fundamental flaw in the average American moviegoer. Any American should know that in prison the tradition of having thick multi-paged atlas books and such wrapped around your body is for protection from knives and knife like weaponry. I only say that this should be a fundamental piece of knowledge for all Americans as we have a higher chance of going to prison statistically than graduating college.

    A lot of people seem to be confused as to why Chris Hemsworth is playing the role of a hacker but I like the performance. Following in the vein of those characters that we have seen before in previous Mann films such as Thief and Heat where there is a struggle to be striving for a place in the world and unable to completely understand how to get there. Maybe it was the whole Thor thing that fucked him up because honestly, I would have rather seen him go into meatier roles in the vein of this character instead of the hulking facade of a troubled past character we saw in those Extraction movies. God those were terrible.

Final Thoughts

    Michael Mann has always been a top 5 director for me. Something about them speaks loudly to whatever lurks within me and I will go see his next film when it comes out. I did actually go see Ferrari and I liked that film as well even though it had a very similar reaction to this film. His next film is going to be a sequel to Heat, based on the novel he wrote which was pretty good as yes, I did read it, and at the age of 82, it might be his last. If this be the case then I can't wait to see it in theaters. 

 

The Review of The Story of a Junkie by Frankie Boothareno

Where the sky stayed the color of grey, like heron

     From the various books such as Requiem for a Dream and The Basketball Diaries, as well as films such as Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream, and as well as the greatest television show The Wire. I came to understand 1 thing regarding heroin: It is a hell of a drug.

what a novel

    I haven't tried it since I never hung around the type of crowd that endeavored anything beyond marijuana though there have been rumblings about certain individuals that I am acquainted with in having partaken but from what I remember from the last point of contact with them, they seem to be more on the tweaking side with meth than something like heroin but I digress.
    Heroin and its story within the United States has always been a fascinating piece of history for me to learn about. From such beginnings where it became a part of this seedy underworld image with the likes of opium dens during the gold rush in the 19th century. So much of a striking image that it would be backdrop for various yellow peril tales featuring offensively racist characters such as Dr. Fu-Manchu.

who else better to play Fu Manchu but Christopher Lee

    Jumping forward in time and reading about manufactured heroin being smuggled into the USA during the Vietnam war was also a high point for Heroin in the United States. US Soldiers rotating back to the states were hooked on the stuff and with age old theory of supply following demand, capitalists at the right place and right time wanted to spread the joy to the rest of the United States. Then seeing the various footage on how it completely decimated neighbors and communities as the years rolled on alongside the complete failure of the War on Drugs that did absolutely nothing to stop the drug trade. 

    The clashing between brutal and violent capitalistic ventures of drugs on the street against the bureaucratic failure of the United States Government being unable to take control of the situation has always fascinated me. As it should with any American having to wake up to the hell we live in. 
    So a slice of life that focuses around an addict like the film The Story of a Junkie offered at first glance a film that I found immensely fascinating but as the credits rolled, there was something troubling in seeing the construction of the film.

The Film

    The film follows the trials and tribulations of one John 'Gringo' Spacely as he goes about his day to day life as a guy with a habit in the Lower East Side of New York City. This being the late 1980's New York that hadn't yet sold it's soul to real estate investors and was instead churning itself in the last moments of its shallow grave with a terrible drug trade destroying its city and landlords firebombing their own places for the insurance money. This was the time before it became all Disneyland.

The Greatest Newspaper Headline

    We follow the highs and lows of Gringo as he goes around the town looking to score, getting mugged, and talking to the camera to get a couple of internal feelings and thoughts across but mostly the camera plays like a fly on the wall. Leaving the world to pass by to keep it as untouched and real as possible.

A Documentation of Sorts    

    The feeling and presentation of the film falls under the style known as: Cinéma vérité. A sort of follow along without any coordinated effort to try and present some sort of voice over or flow of a narrative. Showcasing the characters interactions throughout his days to create a collection of images that then could be edited when its all said and done to present a story.    
    Truly the best part about the film is that not a moment throughout it feels as though judgement is being placed on the guy. It really is just showing his life on the streets as he tries to fuel his habit. What film also accomplishes looking it now to the world around was in documenting the possible future of addiction and if anything should have been seen a warning to what was coming to all of America but that's another rant for another place beyond that of a film blog.

   The film goes along and nearing the end, Gringo shows himself in the early stages of getting clean and talks about the sickness (withdrawal) and the proper steps to get off the drugs instead of going cold turkey. Its during the end of the film where the audience is presented with a pivotal moment that has affected me in a way that I believe will stir within me for a good part of my life.

    The scene being about Gringo's reason to entering this life. He's just talking and there's no voice asking or replying back to him with any questions or anything so he's just talking out loud for anyone to listen.         He talks about this girl he married years ago and how she had gotten pregnant but the kid didn't make it. She had some issues or something and the baby had come out of her at like 3 months and he talks about the experience of it all with a tinge of sadness but it comes out so matter of fact.

the scene in question

    You ever hear a story from somebody that has been through some terrible event and when you hear them tell this tale it just gets sadder and sadder and by the end you have a tear in your eye but the orator telling you the story is so matter of fact about it that it just seemed to be like he was telling you his grocery list?

    It's the same type of storytelling you get when hearing this guy talk all throughout this film but listening to him having to toss out his 3 month baby into the trash and having nightmares from the sight and such and needing an escape. Its a short brutal story and gives insight on how anyone would have gotten their start with heroin.

Feelings of Uncertainty 

    It's certainly a movie that succeeds but there are a few moments where I felt uncertain of the film riding the line of genuine curiosity to exploitative. These feelings of exploitation coming from the fact that the promotional materials that Troma made in releasing the film, just see the poster earlier in the blog, and the fucking logo in the beginning of the film just doesn't feel right with me. Which leads me uncertain as a whole as to the complete authenticity of the film as Troma has been known to make editorial decisions of their own free will.

leaves a bad taste in my mouth

    Alongside this sense of uncertainty, there were some scenes of the film that felt staged though these moments are too scattered around and ultimately inconsequential from the primary observational eye of the camera so I can say that it succeeds more-so than fails in presenting this guys story as amoral as possible but with an asterisk. 

    There is also a moment in the film, possibly the weakest, when the movie turns into music video of sorts as Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five song The Message is playing as images of the rundown streets and Gringo just living life pass by. 

    It is tough to tell if my point to criticize this particular scene at this moment of time is justified as this lifestyle at that time wasn't widespread knowledge. It must be understood that my opinion right now is that of a modern asshole giving an opinion on a moment of time that coincides and clashes alongside so much more information about this particular time of the American Drug Trade. All that existed then and what I can only assume was the point of the scene was to showcase something new for people that had no clue while having a fairly popular song that details in genius rhyming scheme the trials and tribulations of drug ridden New York. 

    Regardless, seeing this movie now I can only see this moment being so out of place to the rest of the film. It's just a showcase of more images of Gringo just doing the day to day rituals like combing your hair, cleaning your shoes, and walking around. It's a great song but playing against these images just doesn't work for me. Especially with Chuck Kentis's fantastic score playing all throughout the film. And it certainly doesn't feel like a proper build up to that extraordinarily sobering scene in the film.

    The movie playing out as amorally as possible but this part felt like a public service announcement of the lowest order. These grievances aside, as they are my own issues with the film, the overall impact of the film does far more good than bad.

    The ending though is just perfect. No notes or anything. The song Since I Don't Have You by Don McLean plays alongside the image of Gringo just riding around on his skateboard. A bittersweet sensations as you watch him coast along and feel some hope for the guy as the screen fades to black and credits start to roll.

 

   Bittersweet in that this documentary is about a guy who unfortunately didn't get a chance to come out clean the other side. John Spacely would die of AIDS in 1993. Most likely from sharing needles during this time as he had tried to go clean after this movie was made and strive for an acting career of sorts. 

The End

    A film that succeeds more so than falters in showcasing a external world that no longer exists as the neighborhoods of New York get cleaned up, for the most part, but internally to every person out there needing to escape as the successes of the old world around them seem to get farther and farther from their grasp, it seems like a road paved in blood waiting for them to travel down. It only takes a critical life event to make that road seem far appealing to travel down. Just look at John 'Gringo' Spacely. 

    If I had seen this back in the day, watching him ride this skateboard would give me a sense of childish hope that he would make it out but seeing it 41 years later, it hurts to accept my first reaction that its no surprise the guy didn't make it. Hardly any American today ever do.