Michael Mann is the director of the crime thriller “Heat,” which was released in 1995. The film tells the narrative of two individuals in Los Angeles who are on opposing sides of the law. The movie contains an amazing cast that includes Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, and Tom Sizemore. The story follows a crew of highly trained and experienced criminals, commanded by Neal MacAuley (Robert De Niro), as they plan and execute a string of high-stakes robberies around the city. LAPD detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), takes on the case after one of their operations goes astray and culminates in a violent encounter with the police. He then begins a search to bring down MacAuley and his team. 

The film delves deep into the psyches of its characters, presenting them as nuanced characters who face their own challenges and have their own reasons for doing the things they do. Because of the demands of his profession, Hanna, a veteran police officer, is a workaholic who struggles to form meaningful relationships with his wife and stepdaughter. On the other side, MacAuley is a self-disciplined and systematic thief who is plagued by his previous failures and is resolved to retire after making one final score. As the two men chase after one another across the city, they gradually acquire a resentful admiration for one another. This leads to a decisive encounter, which puts their abilities and commitment to the test. 

Interpretation

“Heat” is widely recognized as one of the greatest crime movies ever filmed, because of its brilliant performances, riveting action sequences, and thought-provoking themes. The movie covers hard subjects such as the nature of obsession, the cost of living a life of crime, and the thin border between legality and lawlessness. “Heat” is a must-see for anybody who respects excellent filmmaking as well as fans of the genre because of its high-octane car chases, dramatic shootouts, and sophisticated story twists.

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This movie starts in the thick of it with the company starting to lay off people on an entire floor. The first fire we see is of a man named Eric Dale. Eric is surprised that he was even going to be fired because of his role in the company but it seems that they are coming for everyone in this firing spree. As Eric is leaving he mentions that he’s been working on something. First, he tells Will who comforts him by saying that he no longer has to deal with the company’s business, he’s free now. The second person he tells is Peter. He gives Peter the hard drive that his work is on and before he goes he says “be careful.” Doing all of this naturally caused Peter to be curious as to what Eric had been working on. So that night Peter went through the work and was able to complete it. After doing so he found that the company had been replicating the same graphs of companies within a bubble. I believe it was 5 days out of the last two weeks that they replicated the graph. Eric’s work didn’t stop there, it also predicted that the company would not be profiting for very long. When Peter found this out he immediately got his friend Seth to bring Will in to see Eric’s work. With Will now seeing it two things had to be done: the high-ups need to be notified immediately and they need to find Eric Dale. This is what sets the movie into motion. 

Interpretation

The movie did a great job of illustrating the 2008 recession from the perspective of a large organization finding out before the rest of the world did. After 2008, the world looked at the large corporation as those who were responsible and to blame for the incident while in the movie they want them to know that they’re not alone. A recurring idea in the movie was that those in charge had almost no understanding of the company’s specifics. They made it abundantly clear that they were in the dark mainly because it wasn’t their job to learn the specifics. The movie also showed that the company was willing to let other people lose their money knowing that they were selling something that had no value. They tried to justify it by saying if the person wants to buy then let them buy. This was clearly wrong and it highlights the moral environment. Nothing is more important than money, they don’t care if other people are losing it if they continue to gain it. 

My favourite moment in the movie was Eric talking about the bridge that he made. This was Eric trying to explain to Will that there are more important things than money, which is helping people. Eric created a bridge, with his calculation he was saving people thousands of hours in the car because of where the bridge was and how it was set up. Eric took pride in that what he did allowed people to get back the most valuable thing in the world, time. This point put Dale in a new light. He was different than the people that he would work with by having different priorities. Will was trying to get him to come back to the office where he would just get paid to be there but with this story, he showed that some things are worth more than money. This great moment was ruined when we later saw Eric come back to the office even after how he was treated when fired. But just like he claimed, “he needed the money.” Showing that at the end of the day, it always comes back to money. Like many of the other people in this movie, Eric set aside their principles in the pursuit of money, and the 2008 bubble didn’t help them learn their lesson. 

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I decided to first watch this movie because the concept behind it interested me. I think that there are a lot of places you can go with the concept of having drugs that can alter a person’s emotions in drastic ways. The beginning clip of the movie had me asking several questions and caused me to be excited for the adventure I would go on watching this movie. From the jump, Steve (Chris Hemsworth) would claim that they were doing all of this to help people but it was very clear that there is a motive under the surface. Steve’s personality lead me to believe that he was a psychopath fairly early into the movie. It was clear that he had a way with words and he would use this to get people to do what he wanted. This is shown when he mentions the committee and how they made all the decisions. He made it seem like he had no say in the matter when in reality it was all him. As for Jeff (Miles Teller), his reasoning behind participating in the experiments was that he saw it as his way to redemption. Jeff was constantly told that his action would lead to millions of lives being saved.  

The experiments were all centred around love which had me believe that that was what Steve and Veraline (Mark Paguio) were attempting to create. A drug that could cause you to love even those truly lonely would be able to experience true love. While the experiments were conducted Jeff and a girl he shared duties with at the facility named Lizzie (Jurnee Smollett) started to fall in love. So while Steve was trying to forcibly create love between two people Jeff organically fell in love with someone. Jeff would be given a dose that made him love Heather (Tess Haubrich) but outside of the experiment Jeff had no feelings towards Heather at all. I wonder what the effect of the drug would have been if the experiment was done between Jeff and Lizzie. 

An experiment goes bad, which ends with Heather cutting her own neck and Jeff being partially responsible for it. However, through the chaos of the event, Jeff was able to go through the notebook that Steve has been using to document his findings. This is when Jeff discovers that Steve’s whole committee story is a lie and that all the experiments are leading up to something big. This newfound distrust causes Jeff and Lizzie to be against the whole Spiderhead facility and wonder if living at State would be better.  Jeff ends up confronting Mark about the things done in the facility and the true purpose of it all which causes Mark to break down. He ends up confessing to what they’ve done which means he is all for whatever plan Jeff comes up with. The next day Steve uses his knowledge of the relationship between Jeff and Lizzie to get Jeff to administer a drug called Darkenflox to her. Throughout the movie, Jeff has been against dishing this drug out because he first hand has felt it. Jeff, Lizzy, and Steve have a back-and-forth about whether Jeff should do it which he decides not to do. However, Jeff does end up using the same drugs to affect Steve. They get into a big fight and Steve ends up giving Lizzie a huge dose of Darkenflox. Jeff rushes to take the drugs out of her while Steve learns that Veraline called the police to arrest him, so he makes a run for it. Lizzie and Steve also decide to make a run for it. Steve ended up dying in his escape while Lizzie and Steve got away. 

Interpretation 

Throughout the story, we were told the different backstories of several characters. The interesting thing about their stories is it all involved someone doing something bad to someone they loved. Which coincidentally is the true purpose behind the Spiderhead facility. Steve’s ultimate goal is to create a drug that will make people follow any command even one they don’t want to do. And the thing people don’t want to do most is to hurt a loved one. As for the philosophical core of this movie I can’t figure out what the writer was trying to convey. Maybe he was trying to show that the people we love are the people that we tend to hurt the most or that love is not like the other emotions where you can force it on someone. Other than that I did find the story to be interesting but I did think that the ending was lacking in terms of bringing all the ideas together to make a cohesive movie. 

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The beginning starts with an interesting concept. Batman (Robert Pattinson) is narrating what seems to be his journal of the journey of being Batman. It was interesting to get this perspective of Batman and how he viewed that he felt he wasn’t truly changing the city and insight into what the Bat signal meant to him and the city. The world-building in the movie was incredible and I found that most of the exposition was delivered properly and seemed organic to the flow of the story. Through his journal it was clear he has been batman for a while but he’s still just starting and is getting the hang of it. By the end of the first segment of the movie (which I would mark as the subway fight scene), I knew that we would have a good time with this story. The death of the mayor set the tone for the type of Batman movie that we are going to get. It’s gonna get gruesome and bloody and real. This was demonstrated from the get-go. 

I love the fact that it is a good ole fashion detective story. The riddler (Paul Dano) is proven to be a formidable antagonist from the beginning. I didn’t find him to be distant from Batman and be the type of behind-the-scenes antagonist. His presence was very much felt. The riddles of course were good, but I think they were all solved too easily. I was tryna figure them out too but Batman beat me every time. I’m just gonna chalk it up to him just being Batman.

The first interaction between Bruce and Alfred (Andy Serkis) was one I wasn’t particularly fond of. I found Bruce to be acting like an emo kid acting out toward Alfred. He seemed so immature it slightly turned me off from the character. After a while however, as more dimensions of him started to get exposed I began to be more empathetic. A great scene to expand this point would be when Batman was at the mayor’s crime scene and he’s on his way out. On his way out he saw the son of the mayor sitting down distraught because he was the one who found his father murdered. Bruce shined over Batman at that moment as Bruce stood there staring at the kid for longer than he was welcomed to. At that moment finding the killer became personal to him. The whole reason he became Batman is to stop people from doing the type of thing that happened to him when he was younger. Also, earlier in that scene Batman is walking through the crowd of officers on his way to the crime scene. Before he gets to the scene an officer stops him from entering. At this moment I saw Batman look almost vulnerable. It was weird, but I could see that side of him for a second. Something that we see later on in the film when Bruce is confronting Alfred about the news of his father. This is a new and necessary side of Batman and Bruce Wayne. As far as a logical plot goes it had good pacing and I found it to be a masterclass in an escalating plot. As more time went on the stakes were rising. The more we learned about the corruption of Gotham the more people were impacted by the new knowledge. The antagonist (Riddler) is similar to Joker from the Dark Knight in the sense that his actions, however bad, helped Batman clear up the streets of Gotham. The big difference would be the end plan of flooding Gotham this seemed a little incoherent in relation to his main goal of exposing all lies of Gotham. 

Now the relationship between the Bat and the Cat (Zoë Kravitz) was a big highlight of the movie for me. Anytime they shared the screen it was amazing. I love how the Cat was her own character that shared goals with the Bat at times but when she didn’t she would abandon him and go her own way without a second thought. The scene of the Cat explaining her entire background was a bit of a problem for me because there are other ways to do that but it was the only scene between them that wasn’t as good so I’ll give it a pass.  It seemed they gave the Cat a type of arc when she didn’t kill Falcone but it wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been. If there was a moment earlier in the film where the Cat killed someone without hesitation in the name of Justice and through the interactions with the Bat she then didn’t with Falcone then her arc would’ve been more felt by the audience. 

 Gordon’s (Jeffrey Wright) and Batman’s relationship was also greatly depicted in the movie. I like that it was like they only had each other to make it through the riddles. Gordon can’t trust anyone in the Police department and Batman only has a relationship with Gordan out of all of the cops. It was a kind of duo cop team that occasionally supplied some good comedy.

I wish that they introduced the court of owls into the conspiracy of Gotham. I think it would’ve been nice and a good way to set up conflict for the next Batman film. I like where the characters left off specifically Batman and Catwoman. We don’t know what Alfred’s status is but it’s 100% likely that he’ll make it out of the hospital fine. We also didn’t get a glimpse of the situation with Gordon, normally we would’ve gotten a small scene where he’s appointed as the commissioner but I guess it’s too early in their journeys. Even the Riddler had a somewhat final destination going to prison seemed like that’s it for him, for now. Then they did something interesting when they introduced what I think might be Joker. It’s impossible to be sure but it’s likely to be him. He said the word “clown” and began laughing hysterically with Riddler. The arc of Batman was well done. He now sees the value of his presence in Gotham and now knows that he can make a difference in the city.

The post The Batman (2022) first appeared on Burkeview.

 A man dying of a terminal illness is unwilling to leave his pregnant wife and child behind. Cameron (Mahershala Ali) is now forced with a decision to either tell his family of his fate or have them not know at all. In this future society, they have developed technology that can create a double of you. A replica of yourself is created and it lives out the rest of your life as you. This will allow the original Cameron to die without his family knowing that they are interacting with a replica. His wife Poppy (Naomie Harris) and son Hugo (Dax Rey) shouldn’t be able to tell the real from the copy. 

The decision is an incredibly tough one for Cameron. Cameron is torn throughout the movie if he’s made the right choice not only for himself but for his family. The main concern is if the copy is indistinguishable from the original so Cameron meets with a copy already out in the world. Cameron is reassured by Dr. Scott (Glenn Close) that the switch is unnoticeable. The clone is essentially him with slightly altered DNA and the same memories. The angles shown in the film constantly represent duality. This emphasizes that Cameron and his clone Jack are the same people in some way.

Interpretation 

 I believe this movie poses an interesting question to the audience, would you let your family live on without you? A question that causes you to think of how you would act if you were in the same situation. Most would be ok with this happening (they would have no choice) unless there was an alternative option like the one presented in this movie. Then it becomes a question of being ok with someone taking your place after you are gone. We may love our family deeply but if your decision is not to not to go through with it, we can reveal our selfishness in not wanting our loss to be replaced so easily by another. Perhaps if this is the case we begin to question our own values in relation to our family. 

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The movie begins with Ironhead (Charlie Hunnam) talking to a bunch of military guys. He tells them about a time he choked a guy so badly that he was pissing himself and nearly killed him. This was at a grocery store and he did it because the man skipped him in a line. This touches on the popular theme that is in movies about war veterans. It’s extremely hard for them to fit back into society. Throughout the movie, this same sentiment is echoed. Later we see an operation take place with several soldiers trying to subdue a base. After they accomplished that we learned that the goal of this mission is to gain information as to where Lorea may be. Lorea is a man of wide influence and is apparently a very bad man that has control over Pope’s (Oscar Issac) country. The mission was successful when Pope’s informant tells him where he can find Lorea. Pope’s been looking for him for years. With this news, Pope goes to his old war buddies to complete a mission to go after Lorea. While recruiting we see the many different ways war veterans are trying to live in society. Each one of them is trying to find a new way of living but it’s clear that their lives are all lacking in a way by not being in the army. The money that they will get from this one mission should set them all up for life. The money and thrill of doing what they love again caused everyone Pope wanted to join his mission. The group consists of Pope, Ironhead, Redfly (Ben Affleck), Catfish (Pedro Pascal), and Ben (Garrett Hedlund). 

When they first get to Lorea’s compound and do a bit of reconnaissance. Redfly is able to immediately asses the situation and figure out what they would need to do to have a successful mission. After the reconnaissance, the team finds out that Pope has been lying to them about the funding of the mission. Instead of the corporation that Pope works for, it’s really Pope himself that paid their salary and resources for the mission. This causes everyone to pause but they eventually become convinced that they are the best men for the job. They see the window of opportunity and see this as a very doable job. The operation is soon underway and everything is going well so far. They are able to infiltrate the compound and eliminate all immediate threats. There were two early problems: there was no sign of Lorea and no idea where the money is. Pope realized that the room smells like paint and that’s when they broke open the wall to find stacks of cash. Lorea came out of a secret entrance where he was able to get Ironhead on his side before he himself was killed. 

The sequence of packing up the money is when the first sign of unease within the group made itself evident. They already had more than enough bags and yet Redfly wanted them to keep going because they had enough time. The rest of them thought regardless of the time they should still leave now. Redfly having a tactically brilliant mind causes him to feel a different weight when thinking of all the mistakes he’s made. This shows in every decision he makes throughout the movie. This, among him having a family, is what really gave his character more life than the rest of them. Catfish is the least developed in the movie. After leaving the compounds with those bags of money things only went downhill. They had a getaway plane and on their escape, they didn’t account for the weight of all the money which limited how high the plane can rise. They had to crash land in a farmer’s village. The locals flocked to the money and it caused a debate between the two parties. Tension was raised to a point where Redfly felt no choice but to shoot at the locals, killing several. Pope was able to bargain with the village elder. Giving him a significant amount of money for the lives of the people Redfly killed on top of paying for donkeys. After that, the group continued to make their escape. 

They go across and up the mountains until they are fired at. It was the youth from the same village they came from. Their attack was successful as they were able to kill Redfly before they themselves died. With Redfly gone the group’s main concern was to get his body back home and take as much money as they can home. Mostly all of the money was thrown down a cave. They had to make one last push through a city on the coast with hopes of making it on a boat that’ll take them to safety. After accomplishing that we would next see everyone in a board room where we learn that they walked out with just over 5 million dollars. Which is split 5 ways. When given the decision everyone decides to give their piece of the money to Redfly’s family. But hope is still there when Ironhead leaves Pope with the coordinates of where they threw the money into the cave. 

Interpretation 

Overall this was a good film. The themes were definitely evident early and constantly reoccurring throughout the film. I was happy with the cast of characters and the different stories that followed this very specific framework. Normally most of a movie like this consists of the planning of the big operation with the entire third act being the job itself. This movie focused mostly on the escape from the job and all the complications that come with that. For that reason, this movie followed a different pace which was new and refreshing. A lot of times throughout the film the morality of the characters was put into question. Very often they either did or had strong reasons to do immoral things to get the job done. This involves killing the informant before she ever left for Australia or killing the village people to protect their money. These tough decisions that the character had to face gave the movie more life and depth to the characters as a whole. Leaving all the money with Redfly’s family really left most of their efforts with nothing to show for it. But that revelation can be changed if Pope somehow finds a way to retrieve the buried money. 

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The Northman follows a Nordic prince named Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) who seeks to avenge his father’s death, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke). His father’s killer is his uncle named Fjölnir (Claes Bang). Fjölnir took his brother’s life and dragged the screaming mother of Amleth away. The Northman is based on the Norse legend of Amleth. The same Norse tale that inspired William Shakespeare to write Hamlet. 

Years after his father’s death we are joined back to Amleth where we see him still engulfed in his rage toward Fjölnir. Amleth becomes a slave of his uncle with his ultimate goal in mind. Along the way, he meets a woman named Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy). Their fates seemed intertwined as Olga helps him reek chaos on everyone close to Fjölnir. Amleth would repeat a mantra to himself, “I will avenge you father, I will save you mother, I will kill you Fjölnir,” but after his encounter with his mother his plans change. 

His mother reveals herself to be a part of the plot to kill King Aurvandill. This puts Amleth into a place of confusion about what to do. Amleth and Olga have the opportunity to escape to Amleth’s kinsmen. However, Amleth discovers that his legacy will continue through Olga and the children she will bear. This causes him to return to Fjölnir so that his children will not be hunted. He was told that he would have to choose between being kind to his kinsman or hate for his enemies and by eliminating this threat he will have chosen both. 

Now back to finish Fjölnir, Amleth kills both his mother and Fjölnir’s son. Fjölnir challenges him to a dual at the gates of hel. There, Fjölnir meets his end but so does Amleth causing him to finally rest. 

Interpretation

This movie constantly speaks about destiny and how Amleth’s fate is tied to the killing of Fjölnir. Amleth has an opportunity to walk in the opposite direction of his faith but chooses not to in order to protect his new family. This poses the question of whether we can truly move away from what has been destined for us. By how the movie ended seems to tell us that we are bound to follow whatever thread is connected to us. In the movie’s case, this gives hope to the children of Amleth as they are seen wearing royal garments. It seems that our own destiny awaits us. 

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It all begins with a contest that selects a random programmer from a search engine company called Blue Book. The programmer selected is a man named Caleb Smith (Domhnell Gleeson). Caleb is flown out to the middle of nowhere to meet with the owner of BlueBook, Nathan Bateman(Oscar Isaac). Nathan tells him that he is creating AI and that Caleb will be the human component of the Turing test. This is a test developed to see if Nathan’s AI robot Ava (Alicia Vikander) has consciousness. There is a sequence of sessions between Caleb and Ava where they pick each other’s brains. During these sessions, Caleb and Ava begin to build a relationship. A common power outage occurs in one particular session where Ava tells Caleb that he should not trust Nathan. This puts Caleb on edge and causes him to dig deeper into his suspicions. We discover the shady nature behind the creation of Nathan’s AI robots. Nathan explains to Caleb that Ava will be the second last draft AI, and the next one he creates will be a complete version. Because of the relationship they’ve built during their sessions Caleb tells Ava that he’s breaking her out. Unfortunately, Nathan is aware of their plan and takes action to make sure it won’t work. However, unbeknownst to both Nathan and Caleb, Ava has plans of her own and she is able to break out of the facility leaving Nathan and Caleb to die. 

Interpretation 

It seems that both Nathan and Caleb underestimated Ava’s ability. This shortcoming would cost both of them their lives in the end. We learn close to the end of the movie that Nathan had always planned that Caleb would try to let Ava out, this was the whole point of him coming. But he did not anticipate Ava. Not only was her creator underestimating her but so was Caleb. Caleb thought that she cared for him when in reality she was just using him as a means to an end. I believe this was a story to highlight how we underestimate the technology that we create. And that this belief that we are superior to our technology can lead to our downfall. Most of us can’t even put down our phones for an hour, in that sense who is in control of who? 

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It all begins with a bad miracle. Money is falling from the sky, unfortunately, it’s falling at such a rate that it can kill someone. And that’s exactly what we see happen to Otis Haywood (Keith David). Otis is the owner of a ranch in California, where they breed horses for show business. After his death, the family business is left to Oj (Daniel Kaluuya) and Em (Keke Palmer). We faze forward 6 months after his death where we see Oj is struggling to keep the business afloat. His sister Em has a knack for show business but she tends to promote her things alongside the family business (something Oj dislikes). A job opportunity that they desperately need has fallen between their fingers. This causes Oj to go to someone he’s done business with in the past, Jupe (Steven Yeun). Jupe ends up describing the chaotic situation of a monkey going nuts and killing several people on the set of a show called Ricky. A show where Jupe was the star as a kid. Jupe describes the event to Oj and Em but he does it with a sparkle in his eye. He speaks about it not from a place of trauma but as if he were watching a spectacle, something to marvel at. 

When back at the ranch one of the horses, Ghost, breaks out. Oj follows him and thinks he sees some sort of flying saucer. As he viewed the saucer the power went out in the house where Em was. Not only were plugged-in things powered off but so were battery-using devices. Oj tells his sister what he believes he saw and they use this as an opportunity to save the ranch. If they can collect solid footage of proof that there’s alien life they would be able to make a fortune. 

This brings them to Fry’s, which is based on a true store that closed down. While there, they met a man named Angel who they need to set up the cameras they bought. Angel (Brandon Perea) suspects what they are doing and wants to be involved. After it’s set up they have a second encounter with the UFO. They, unfortunately, fail to capture the footage due to a praying mantis covering the camera. Oddly the mantis immediately leaves after the ship is no longer visible. Because of this, they decide they need help from someone else to capture “The Impossible Shot.” So, they go to Antlers (Michael Wincott), who was the director for the same job opportunity that they had early and failed on. Antlers turn it down by saying it’s impossible to get the impossible shot. 

Jupe puts on a show for the community where he shows them that he’s able to tame the flying saucer. This performance goes bad as we see a group of people get swallowed up by the UFO. The disappearance of all those people eventually gets news coverage and gets Antler’s attention. He decides to join them and capture the impossible shot. Oj, Em, Antlers, and Angel come up with a plan to draw out the saucer by using the fact that it’s drawn to eyes looking at it. They begin to execute their plan when a TMZ reporter gets in the middle of it. Forced to adjust Antler opts to sacrifice himself to get that impossible shot. Em can draw the creature to a well that takes photos and she gets the perfect shot. 

Interpretation 

This film demonstrates multiple examples of people doing everything they can to capture a spectacle. The prime example of this would be Oj and Em willing to risk their lives to capture solid proof of alien life on Earth. They follow this to a lesser degree than the other examples because Em eventually says that their life is not worth it and that they should give up. The only reason they continue is because Oj is unwilling to leave the horses to die. On top of Oj and Em, there is Jupe. Someone who ended up dying because he wanted to put on a show for the locals. However, he did not fully understand the animal that he was dealing with and that ignorance cost him his life. There was also Antlers and the TMZ reporter who died trying to get the perfect shot of the UFO. All these people had put capturing a moment ahead of their own lives. I believe this could be Jordan Peele’s way of highlighting our society’s need to capture a moment rather than live in it. In some of these cases, they lost their lives but in reality, you lose the opportunity to live in the moment by focusing on capturing it. 

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