Mann is back

Rating: 7/10 (25 April 2010)

Mann is back, back on his chronological track of men and gunpowder, amidst which you can distinguish that this time, a little more than before,a back-flash into the darkness of history, and a trying earning of applause
That's doubtless an ever good experience to see the challenge a gangster-addicted director tries to overrun on the narrow screen, let alone the indulgence of the cast, which burns up my modest expectation by the easiest way; yes, you can count on the taste of blood-rocking glimpses razored down from corners of Depp's eyes, but that must eat your heart out to see the Batman and Piaff flank the Pirate in old Jazz.
The tempo and temper in the first half hour are still as sharp and clean as the shot could be from the behind of camera against Mann's aiming eye. He never loose his lens hair-thick away form his action-loaded guys. But as road runs noisy and crowded, something there, something thinner. There better be an umbrella in the stormy bullets, I have to say, to rest a room where the characters' soul can breathe in adequate air in case the physical elbows away the chemical. The same between two men as before, the Insider runs out, Heat down to hot.
Maybe the little bit of heavier involvement of the opposite sex dissolves down the complexity of men. That cliff-cut goodbye for a girl comes to shy in hilly slop. It stops to function mirror but mate in the meaning of its own for the lady along side of the uncompromising tough hero. That's a pleasing new in Mann but plain in the genre.
Plenty of measures from style to plot are applied in the end to save density and richness and they work in an efficient way, still sharp and clean. That's safe to say good, however, we opt to reserve our regret as long as it is by Mann.