Heat 2: It's a Mann's World (but he'd be nothing without a woman)

[13 schoolyards]

Been slowly slogging my way through this sequel / prequel to the classic cops'n robbers movie, written by Michael Mann (writer / director of the movie) and crime novelist Meg Gardiner.

It's exactly what you'd expect, in that it's slick, it moves fast, and the dialogue is very much like what you get in a Mann crime movie. The story works pretty well too - half of it is prequel where Al Pacino's cop is trying to catch a home invasion crime crew in Chicago in the 80s, while DeNiro's bank robber is still out to do crime despite having a decent home life (don't get used to it), the other half is a sequel where Val Kilmer's character goes on the run to where they filmed the cartel scenes in Mann's Miami Vice movie and slowly turns into the Hemsworth character from Blackhat. Kinda surprising Tom Cruise's hitman from Collateral doesn't turn up, but I've still got a few chapters left.

The problem is that there's absolutely no point to any of it. The characters all do cool things and the book is well written (for what it is), but where you can come away from Heat (the movie) thinking "yes, being utterly devoted to your job kinda trashes your personal life" or "that was some good acting there" or "man, those guns were loud", this has no extra layers of meaning at all. It's just a bunch of stuff that happens in a competent but generic fashion.

I used to be reflexively defensive of fanfic, just on a "let people write what they want to write" level, but this is fanfic of the worst kind, where the writers have just taken a bunch of action figures out of a toy box to make them do stuff because they love them so much. Even Kilmer's one defining characteristic - he loves his family - largely gets dumped because it's more fun to have him hook up with an Asian crime boss's daughter so they can make plans to sell dodgy electronic warfare gear to Eastern Europe.

[elliszeroed]

This is on my next to read list.

Unless something more interesting comes along.

I haven't read any interviews with Mann about this, but surely a Sequel To Heat: Heat 2... why a novel and not a movie?

A future punt at a TV show perhaps.

[13 schoolyards]

I imagine it'd be hard to do as a movie just because the original actors are so iconic in the roles. It'd be difficult enough playing Young Pacino: having to play a younger version of the guy who said "she's got a great ass, and you've got your head all the way up it!" would sink most careers.

Also sadly this novel does not provide an origin story for why Pacino's character is such a wack job, though you'd assume "fell into a cauldron full of cocaine as a baby" would pretty much cover it