Dennis Haysbert Arc
Lazy Days
These last four or so days it feels like I've done nothing, and now with my summer holidays nearing the end I'm beginning to regret that I haven't done more. Maybe this is what depressed old people feel at the end of their lives, wanting to have done more with their time?
From a practical standpoint the lack-of-doing-stuff isn't all that good as I've got an article to write for a site for which I've set myself the deadline of tomorrow morning (or at this rate I'll never get anything done), I've got a script to finish for a friend's short film (aiming for tomorrow afternoon), I've got to start writing out the script for a short I'll be shooting in the next month (thanks again Dennis, Sonny & Rikky for offering to act in it) which I want done by this time next week (it's really short, so if it takes longer I need to improve my organisational skills) and during all that hopefully find plenty of time each day to enjoy the fact that I'm still in holiday. Sometimes it doesn't feel like I am.
Heat
As I mentioned, I saw Heat the other day. This movie is better than that other awesome Michael Mann film Collateral (but only just) and gets a strong A-, or 4.5/5. Pacino gives possibly his best performance, the role's perfect for him, upstaging Robert Deniro's very by-the-numbers criminal character.
One thing of note that I liked about this movie was that it very cheekily covered up a bit of lazy plotting with a quite pointless series of scenes about a character who means very little to the film.
Basically, we see a character (played by 24's Dennis Haysbert) saying to his wife how he's going to get some crap job at a diner to make a living (instead of taking the easy way out and being a crook to get by). We see him getting treated poorly at said job by the boss. Later, we see him telling his wife how he'll stick to it anyway. This is all we see of this character for the first 96 minutes of the movie, and none of it is relevant to the plot in anyway whatsoever up until this point. Wtf?
Well, I'll tell you wtf. Basically, at this point (96 mins) Deniro's character learns through a phone call that one of their guys is being watched by the cops and will have to bail out of their hiest plans. This is necessary to later events in the movie as by that guy not being with his colleagues at the pre-heist preparations he gets beaten up badly and is forced to give away the plans about the heist to a man who in turn tells the cops. But what to do in the screenplay now, Mr. Mann? They're a man down, and going back and writing in an extra character would be stupid because they didn't need an extra guy before. Oh look, says Deniro, it's Dennis Haysbert, MY OLD CRIMINAL ACQUAINTANCE WORKING IN THIS EXACT DINER WHERE WE ARE PONDERING WHAT ON EARTH TO DO ABOUT GETTING A REPLACEMENT. How convenient. The fact is, if Mann hadn't given Haysbert backstory it would have been like an act-two deus ex machina having someone be there at that exact time and location so conveniently. Mann had the balls to do that, something so sneaky yet blatant when you realise how preposterous Haysbert's coincidental presence at that place and moment is, and I applaud him for it.
Why? Because of how Haysbert's arc is finished. It becomes a sort of subtle joke that this seemingly unimportant character finally gets involved... only to be treated so unimportantly when he is killed. The next time we see him after this diner scene is when he drives the crooks' getaway car after the heist. He is shot, and the film does not dwell on this shooting like it might another character who we've seen throughout the film (ie. normally most movies would make it very clear that it happened, perhaps isolate the incident for a few seconds as it happens or after, but not just have him shot when he isn't even the main subject in the frame at the time and then never see him again). This in many ways drills in the pointlessness of his set-up-arc in the first half of the film, so at least Mann acknowledged it.
These last four or so days it feels like I've done nothing, and now with my summer holidays nearing the end I'm beginning to regret that I haven't done more. Maybe this is what depressed old people feel at the end of their lives, wanting to have done more with their time?
From a practical standpoint the lack-of-doing-stuff isn't all that good as I've got an article to write for a site for which I've set myself the deadline of tomorrow morning (or at this rate I'll never get anything done), I've got a script to finish for a friend's short film (aiming for tomorrow afternoon), I've got to start writing out the script for a short I'll be shooting in the next month (thanks again Dennis, Sonny & Rikky for offering to act in it) which I want done by this time next week (it's really short, so if it takes longer I need to improve my organisational skills) and during all that hopefully find plenty of time each day to enjoy the fact that I'm still in holiday. Sometimes it doesn't feel like I am.
Heat
As I mentioned, I saw Heat the other day. This movie is better than that other awesome Michael Mann film Collateral (but only just) and gets a strong A-, or 4.5/5. Pacino gives possibly his best performance, the role's perfect for him, upstaging Robert Deniro's very by-the-numbers criminal character.
One thing of note that I liked about this movie was that it very cheekily covered up a bit of lazy plotting with a quite pointless series of scenes about a character who means very little to the film.
Basically, we see a character (played by 24's Dennis Haysbert) saying to his wife how he's going to get some crap job at a diner to make a living (instead of taking the easy way out and being a crook to get by). We see him getting treated poorly at said job by the boss. Later, we see him telling his wife how he'll stick to it anyway. This is all we see of this character for the first 96 minutes of the movie, and none of it is relevant to the plot in anyway whatsoever up until this point. Wtf?
Well, I'll tell you wtf. Basically, at this point (96 mins) Deniro's character learns through a phone call that one of their guys is being watched by the cops and will have to bail out of their hiest plans. This is necessary to later events in the movie as by that guy not being with his colleagues at the pre-heist preparations he gets beaten up badly and is forced to give away the plans about the heist to a man who in turn tells the cops. But what to do in the screenplay now, Mr. Mann? They're a man down, and going back and writing in an extra character would be stupid because they didn't need an extra guy before. Oh look, says Deniro, it's Dennis Haysbert, MY OLD CRIMINAL ACQUAINTANCE WORKING IN THIS EXACT DINER WHERE WE ARE PONDERING WHAT ON EARTH TO DO ABOUT GETTING A REPLACEMENT. How convenient. The fact is, if Mann hadn't given Haysbert backstory it would have been like an act-two deus ex machina having someone be there at that exact time and location so conveniently. Mann had the balls to do that, something so sneaky yet blatant when you realise how preposterous Haysbert's coincidental presence at that place and moment is, and I applaud him for it.
Why? Because of how Haysbert's arc is finished. It becomes a sort of subtle joke that this seemingly unimportant character finally gets involved... only to be treated so unimportantly when he is killed. The next time we see him after this diner scene is when he drives the crooks' getaway car after the heist. He is shot, and the film does not dwell on this shooting like it might another character who we've seen throughout the film (ie. normally most movies would make it very clear that it happened, perhaps isolate the incident for a few seconds as it happens or after, but not just have him shot when he isn't even the main subject in the frame at the time and then never see him again). This in many ways drills in the pointlessness of his set-up-arc in the first half of the film, so at least Mann acknowledged it.
posted by Steve @ 5:22 PM
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