We got a lot of movies on blu ray for Christmas that fit a variety of different genre's, kept trying to come up with some Friday Fright themes for them, like "hey Westerns, haven't done that yet, but really do we have enough??" Then I realized that a lot of them had one thing in common...gun battles!! Looking over the house collection, it soon became really obvious we had loads of stuff to add to the list. So first up this morning a classic shoot 'em up from director Michael Mann.
This is a household favorite precisely because of the gun battle in the film. When I saw the movie for the first time, I thought that, although the shootout was an amazing feat of movie making and cinematography, I really had a dismissive attitude toward the whole thing because it was long and the bank situation struck me as complete bull fantasy. Well that was before I saw Micheal Mann's series "Crime Story"...and then came 1997's North Hollywood shootout! A gun battle that was at least as crazy as the one in the film with only two shooters!! Egg on my face, I watched the film again and saw the genius in it. Sorry Mr. Mann!
None of the clips from this major Hollywood film allow embedding, but I did find a complete clip of the shoot out scene, with the bank scene included--because really (?), it's just not quite the same without it! The clip can be found here.
North Hollywood Shootout 10 year anniversary footage on local Fox station:
The reason that the family of Emil Matasera (who they do not name, and whose actual last name was much more Romanian: Mătăsăreanu ) sued the city was not just because he bled to death--so they have this wrong, or just not telling the truth. He was actually brutally kicked by officers after he was down and disarmed. Not defending the bank robbers, they were vicious thugs, but the police swear an oath...
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