Public Enemies

Only Disconnect by Andrew Tracy Public Enemies Dir. Michael Mann, U.S., Universal Pictures It is at best naïve, at worst wholly disingenuous, to evaluate the work of a commercial artist without weighing the commerce in equal proportion to the art. Thanks to the formalist bent in film criticism, the exemplary visual dexterity of certain mainstream-schooled American filmmakers has been oft highlighted, but frequently at the expense of acknowledging their films’ pecuniary provenance. Ironically, it is the nakedly cash-driven nature of so many of these enterprises that allows that divorce to be made, almost as if these directors have burrowed so deeply into their marketplace mentality that they have emerged, purified, on the other side. It’s thus that the flash-cut tilty-cam cinema nausée of late-period Tony Scott can rate a... [read full story]                    

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