Mann's ode to the night

Rating: 7/10 (24 May 2005)

This film really surprised me in a few ways. Reading the backside of the DVD and remembering those things I heard about the film I wasn't immediately interested. Though a friend of mine wanted to see it, so we hired it. It seemed a good choice in the end.
The way this movie was filmed is interesting and resembles much to what we expect to see when watching a video-clip. The quick alternation of scenes and camera-angles will carry the viewer immediately into the world of the main-characters: L.A. by midnight. This is the successful aspect of the movie. And, which is already made clear by a lot of board-people and commentators on the IMDb website, the actors are pretty good as well.
But then there's the plot and the story as such, which are, compared to the level of the filming and the acting, amazingly non-committal. Some scenes are therefore pretty bad (in my view is the night-club scene where one of Tom Cruise's victims hides out one of the worst scenes and definitely the lowest ebb of the entire movie). Now what I'm trying to figure out is: did Mann want to make a picture of the night and it's violence... or did he want to make an action movie and did it accidentally became the ode to the night it has become. Well, perhaps that just depends on what you (or I) want to see in this entertaining movie.