There are very few films that are constantly brought up as “iconic” for specific genres. “The Godfather” (and its sequel) is thought to be the gold standard for gangster epics. “Psycho” is probably the slasher that all others are compared to. And when you talk about crime-thrillers films, no one can deny the power of Michael Mann’s “Heat.” Not even the co-director of the biggest film in movie history, Joe Russo.
READ MORE: Michael Mann Says His New ‘Heat’ Novel Will Be Released In 2020
While speaking to Polygon, “Extraction” producer Joe Russo (who also co-directed “Avengers: Endgame” with his brother, Anthony) explains how the action film started as a comic book but morphed into a film. And why does he continue to make action films? Well, Russo credits Michael Mann’s “Heat,” which stars Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Val Kilmer, for providing his never-ending inspiration.
“I talk a lot about how the bank heist in ‘Heat’ was the most visceral experience I’ve ever had in the movie theater,” explained Joe Russo. “We chase those experiences and try to create them as filmmakers, to pass them on to audiences in the way that we felt them. We’re chasing a feeling here, and we can only do that in a movie. You can’t get that same kind of compulsion on a comic book page. You can’t get that compulsive narrative that that viscera can’t get that but you can certainly tell a visual story, but you can’t convey that level of immediate intensity.”
And while he will always pursue “Heat”-like perfection, Russo doesn’t think the studio system will allow for another film like Mann’s to be made. The nuance and characters that the legendary director was able to infuse into the DNA of “Heat” aren’t in the minds of studios trying to find the next billion-dollar feature.
“But Heat was really a character study that was blended with one of the more groundbreaking action films that have ever been made,” he said. “And I think that’s why it’s very hard to beat. It’s true auteur, action filmmaking at a length and a pace that … it’s hard to convince a studio to release the movie that way, and requires somebody in Michael Mann’s position to do that. So I think that’s why it’s still such a touchstone. It’s a different era of filmmaking.”
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You may not consider “Avengers: Endgame” the be-all, end-all for filmmaking like some of the Marvel fans on social media, but you can’t deny that Russo does know a thing or two about the history of action films. And he is pretty spot-on with “Heat.”
“Extraction” is available now on Netflix.
You can see an example of the greatness of “Heat” below:
