fun action flick, but lacks the depth and intensity of Heat

Rating: 8/10 (14 January 2005)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***
This was a fun and exciting action movie. Unfortunately, Michael Mann's style is so distinctive that it's virtually impossible to avoid comparing the movie to Heat, which was clearly the better of the two.
One of the film's best aspects is Mann's sweeping use of Los Angeles as his canvas, as it was in Heat. And the action is almost as good as the action in the earlier LA thriller.
The acting was pretty good. Cruise, Foxx and Pinkett turned out decent performances, but how can they possibly compare to DeNiro, Pacino and Portman? The film's main weak point were the characters. They simply weren't as intense or as believable as those in Heat. Vincent was a pretty well-conceived character. Max wasn't. Max's sudden transformations from chilled-out playa to fretting bystander to steely stand-in for a hit man just didn't seem believable. That's the fault of the directors or writers, not of Foxx. In any one moment, he seemed more or less in character. But how in the world did he suddenly strap on the cochones during the sit-down with Felix? C'mon! Fanning really could've benefited from a lot more development. Since Max's heroism seemed to come out of nowhere, it would've been nice to see at least one hero-villain dynamic with some more complexity. For all of Fanning's pouting to his police partners, he didn't make any sort of headway with them. And for all his running around, he didn't do much to bring down Vincent. Mann should've either developed Fanning or left him out altogether.
And then there were several small details that irked me. When did Max's sub sandwich suddenly disappear from the front seat so Vincent could sit down there without getting it all over the seat of his pants? And what the heck was going on when Vincent died? I mean... jeez, he's running all over the friggin' place with a bullet in the shoulder, and then he just sits down, utters some cliché and then dies? C'mon!