By itself, this would probably make a decent and memorable film. The actors in it would probably feel proud to have been a part of it. And NBC would likely look back on it with some fondness.
But, strangely, starting in 1995 this film began to take shape as a truly shoddy piece of filmmaking.
I'll bet Scott Plank and Alex McArthur have been cursing DeNiro and Pacino for nearly 20 years now.
There's no doubt Heat was a superior film, but i still think the actors who appeared in L.A. Takedown should feel proud. I reckon it's on a par with that other great underrated 80's movie To Live and Die In L.A. Both look really dated now, but I think that's part of their charm.
"Fear is not what you owe me. You owe me awe."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcIkqSNZ_qg
http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/la-takedown-michael-manns-heat-before-heat.3712233/
https://www.fudsonfilm.com/heat-la-takedown/
https://www.boards.ie/b/thread/2056122942
https://thedissolve.com/features/movie-of-the-week/882-the-long-warm-up-to-heat/
http://www.johntrafton.com/heat/
http://rawstudios.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=1181
http://www.dangerousuniverse.com/archive/2006/la_takedown/la_takedown.php
https://jalopnik.com/5803466/the-shootout-from-heat-with-a-buick-grand-national
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh5Rz65hAco
If anything, Plank and McArthur had a great tribute paid to their work by having De Niro and Pacino reprise their roles.
These underrated characters were resurrected more than 15 years later with aplomb.
By itself it was a decent and memorable film, I agree, but it was made great and virtually peerless with Heat. I don't think many can cite a top 10 heist movie without mentioning Heat, and the requisite nod to L.A. Takedown.
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Michael Mann decided it. As for Pacino and DeNiro, they both brought a completely fresh approach to the roles. They can't be faulted for being superior actors.
BTW, I really enjoyed L.A. TAKEDOWN despite the flaws in the acting.
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Pacino and De niro elevated the material. As did the increased budget and supporting actors like Kilmer and Sizemore.
Damn, this Scott Plank guy was terrible!!! Yikes. Macarthur was ok as a poor man's heist leader.
Proof what great actors bring to a script
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/a7evpi/proof_what_great_actors_bring_to_a_script/
good links to youtube clips of the cafe scene of each film.
Pachino overacting like a mf
I might be of a small minority but I really thought Plank and MacArthur fit the characters a lot better than Pacino and DeNiro. TAKEDOWN suffers from inferior cinematography, less violence, and smaller scope (pun intended) but I think it's a little leaner and meaner than HEAT, which is almost more of a mood piece at times than a crime thriller. I don't feel like the Natalie Portman subplot added that much to HEAT, plus all the stuff with VAN ZANT just muddied the waters and took the film a little off course. Both films have good casts overall littered with A-movie and B-movie actors with Xander Berkeley in both films (though much smaller role in HEAT in an added scene that ripped off an episode of "Crime Story" line-for-line). I loved how he played Waingro and a sniveling idiotic coward as opposed to the guy in HEAT who was an actual scary tough guy.
Pacino and DeNiro are better actors and play the characters both as seasoned professionals. Plank and MacArthur both feel like up and coming nobodies out to prove themselves, both as actors and within the confines of the narrative. It sets it up to be a little more tense, at least in terms of both characters having a little more to lose. The Drama in HEAT was a little overplayed too at times, like when Pacino has that extended scene hugging the dead prostitute's mom for an extended period of time. It seemed to me like an excessively emotional moment over the death of an inconsequential character.
After rewatching Heat for maybe the fifth time a couple of nights ago, I decided to watch L.A. Takedown tonight. My conclusion is that Takedown is interesting as a curiosity but little more. It is literally lesser on every level: Lesser budget (and it shows), lesser performances, lesser action, lesser story.
You are right that Takedown is leaner, but since Heat is one of those rare films that is very long but during which I never find myself wanting to check my watch, I don't feel like that is a good thing. In Heat, Michael Mann creates a world that is interesting to visit. It has its own aura, its own vibe, and when the credits role I am not ready to leave this place and its characters. I didn't feel anything like that while watching L.A. Takedown. Never once did feel absorbed into the story or its world and, even at only 90 minutes, I felt bored much of the way through.
As I said, Takedown is an interesting curiosity. It's interesting to see what is largely the same story play out on a smaller budget, with different actors, in a different decade. But I don't feel like I could recommend it to anyone to watch for any reason other than that they are a Heat fan and they want to see Michael Mann's practice run before making the real thing.
I feel that LA Takedown does not do as much as HEAT in terms of providing entertainment value or emotional investment, but considering it has about 1/20th the budget (if even that), it certainly is more than 1/20th as good (maybe about half as good) so that makes it something I wouldn't be too quick to discard IF you keep the budget in mind. That's sort of a philosophical issue with rating movies - is more expensive always better, and how much should a movie's budget factor into the appraisal of it.
There used to be a time when movies would boast how large their budget was in that it advertised to audiences that they are going to get to see something a lot of time and money went into. After CLEOPATRA became a debacle, plus other big-budget wastes like HEAVENS GATE, ONE FROM THE HEART, WATERWORLD, etc., "big budget" just wasn't the selling point it used to be. Then you get into my generation (X) where we were freshly cinema-conscious when low budget smash hits like BLAIR WITCH and CLERKS came out. However it is a bit counterintuitive to think a movie is better off with a low budget. I think nobody is that excited by cut corners just as much as nobody wants to see a movie with a lot of overindulgence either. HEAT I think doesn't seem overindulgent when watched in a void, but when you watch it and LA TAKEDOWN side by side, it does come off a little inefficient in terms of story-telling and casting. As to how much "efficiency" plays into audience enjoyment, I think it's a bit subjective as only us critical people even look into things like movie budget at all.
Personally I'd have loved to see Mann take all the money he spent on HEAT and give us 10 movies all with 1/10th the budget, which look and sound about as good as HEAT but with B-movie actors. It'd give us something in between.
I will agree that it's better than 1/20th as good as Heat. But I would put it more like 1/6th as good. Maybe 1/4th on a good day. Certainly not 1/2 as good. But perhaps my feeling about it would be better if I hadn't seen Heat first.
I certainly am not above enjoying an old school made-for-TV movie. In fact, 1999 had three that I really enjoyed: Joan of Arc, Pirates of Silicon Valley and TNT's rendition of A Christmas Carol. But L.A. Takedown didn't do much for me. I will say that the bank robbery scene and subsequent shootout were pretty good. But I didn't feel like any of the rest of the film struck me as particularly good or memorable, and the decision to have Waingro kill Patrick is questionable.
Regarding the film's budget, I can't recall whether $60 million seemed like a big budget in 1995, but certainly in 2025 it seems modest. An inflation calculator tells me is that almost the equivalent of $125 million today. If that's accurate, I will say that it doesn't seem like THAT expensive of a film, so perhaps you are right regarding efficiency. But the result was excellent. I'm sure a lot of that money went to the absolutely stacked cast.
Mann's days as a director are undoubtedly winding down, if due to his age than to no other reason. Sadly, since Heat, he hasn't made any other films that are even close to as good. His best movie since Heat, in my opinion, was the movie he made right after it: The Insider. That was a great film. But his 21st century work has been disappointing.
Yeah he hasn't done anything I'd rate as "excellent" since HEAT but I did rather enjoy COLLATERAL for what it was. The shot-on-video nature didn't bother me too much as it was sort of a crash course in how having two excellent performances at the center of a cheaply shot film can make it still look and feel expensive and mainstream.
I tried watching PUBLIC ENEMIES as I am a huge fan of all incarnations of DILLINGER. Unfortunately, despite having a huge stacked cast, that film just didn't do anything for me and I have yet to finish it.
I'd put Mann's best film as probably "THIEF" (or at least that's my personal favorite). All his 80's stuff is at least worthwhile, even THE KEEP which I know he himself despises but I still find it to be a work of genius. MANHUNTER I think is markedly better than the Brett Ratner remake up until the very silly climax with the shotgun.
I believe I've seen every film that Mann has done since Heat. As I said, The Insider is excellent.
Ali I believe I saw but found it forgettable (which is why I have literally almost forgotten watching it). The first two acts of Collateral were good but I thought the ending felt stock and underwhelming. I saw Public Enemies in the theater and was disappointed by it, but I gave it another chance a few years down the road and enjoyed it more the second time around. My experience with Blackhat was similar: I didn't much care for it the first time around but watched it again and liked it more the second time, though holy shit the ending is stupid. And Ferrari had a good cast and was well-shot but by and large was just dull.
One thing that has stood out to me is that Mann, despite being an early adopted of digital cameras, seemed to take a long time to figure out how to get a nice image with one. Collateral, while it looked digital, still looked okay to me, but Public Enemies suffers badly from the soap opera effect and Blackhat looks extremely digital and muddy and is just kind of an ugly film to look at.
Ferrari looks really nice though, and it makes me wonder if, for some reason I'm unable to explain, Mann WANTED those earlier films to have the highly digital look that they have.