- Actors: Scott Plank, Alex McArthur, Michael Rooker, Ely Pouget, Vincent Guastaferro
- Directors: Michael Mann
- Writers: Michael Mann
- Producers: Michael Mann, Gusmano Cesaretti, Johnny Lattanzio, Patrick Markey
- Format: PAL
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: 15
- Studio: Mia
- DVD Release Date: 22 May 2000
- Run Time: 97 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004T11C
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 39,657 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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English
Region 2
Dolby Digital English
Dolby Digital
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Region 2
Dolby Digital English
Dolby Digital
Interactive Menus
Scene Selections
Play Movie
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
I can't believe i am awarding one star to a Michael Mann movie. Well i have no choice. This 'movie' LA Takedown is a pile of rubbish. I honestly beleive my IQ was reduced whilst watching it. It was made in 1990 just before the brilliant 'Last of the Mohicans'. Mann eventually went onto direct 'Heat' in the mid 1990's which is basically the full version of LA Takedown (Heat runs for over 2 hours long).
LA Takedown came out as a leaner and sharper script with more (unfortuneately) unengaging and unsympathetic characters. LA Takedown is a poor TV movie. And yes you could argue 'Heat' is bloated with substories, and Pacino's HooHa performance is irritating, but Heat is still a masterpiece thriller.
LA Takedown, with its low-budget production values, is nonsense. It is an unintentional hoot for me - it makes me laugh and cring.From the New York Times: 'As Heat progresses, its sensational looks pale beside storytelling weaknesses that expose' the more souless aspects of this cat-and-mouse crime tale...'
Yeah, and what would they write about LA Takedown?
LA Takedown came out as a leaner and sharper script with more (unfortuneately) unengaging and unsympathetic characters. LA Takedown is a poor TV movie. And yes you could argue 'Heat' is bloated with substories, and Pacino's HooHa performance is irritating, but Heat is still a masterpiece thriller.
LA Takedown, with its low-budget production values, is nonsense. It is an unintentional hoot for me - it makes me laugh and cring.From the New York Times: 'As Heat progresses, its sensational looks pale beside storytelling weaknesses that expose' the more souless aspects of this cat-and-mouse crime tale...'
Yeah, and what would they write about LA Takedown?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
I remember watching this beaut shortly before the much anticipated cinema release of Heat. It's good to reflect that Michael Mann expended all his clunkers and ironed out the gremlins on this truly lame TV dinner effort. Looking like it took a whole wet Wednesday afternoon to shoot, at a cost of at least 37 quid, it features two eye wateringly bad performances by Alex McArthur and the-couldn't-have-named-him better-myself Scott Plank. Whilst the plotline clearly has legs, before being refined and developed for the colossally superior Heat, I couldn't get past the dead-eyed pulse-free leads (think much drearier versions - if your imagination can stretch that many light years - of Edward James Olmos and David Caruso, and you're in the right ball park). With sets that would give Acorn Antiques's wobbly walls a run for their money, Takedown is worth viewing only for the duckling to a swan backstory compared to its illustrious big brother. Despite what some may say, Mann absolutely nailed it with the pacy and action packed Heat, underpinned by two truly memorable performances (mannered and shouty as they may have well been, at times) from the peerless Pacino and Di Niro. Verdict: for Mann completists (and fans of unintentional comedy) only.
14 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
To the undiscerning eye this little film is just a low budget trailer for Michael Mann's blockbuster Heat - it doesn't have the special effects, the soundtrack, the big stars etc etc - what it does have is a dynamite script that blows Heat out of the water. Forget about the fact that you are watching a movie made on a shoe string and open your mind - this is hard boiled drama, old school, trim, sharp, condensed. Nobody has written films like this in the last twenty years.
Added to which, Takedown is a more accessible film than Heat, it's younger, less cynical, it's characters love and feel and have emotional lives. The ending is a superb departure from the predictable good guy shoots bad guy charade that Heat, unfortunately sells out to. Above all, Takedown is free from the obesities of Heat, the myriad of tedious subplots, the shamefully theatrical 'Pacino show' that undermines the dramatic flow of Heat at every turn.
If you want to experience film, indeed life, you need to start looking beyond the surface, if you are up to the challenge, this film is the best place to start - a screenwriting masterclass and a real 'megablast'.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great movie all round.
This movie, as a precursor to the overly stylized Heat rendition, is far and away superior to the latter. Read more
Published on 26 Oct 2009 by Mr. P. Kolanis
in some ways better than Heat
Don't be deceived by the haphazard camerawork (it was shot in 2 weeks), lowgrade cinematography, appalling soundtrack, and funny-looking 80s actors: for this is in some ways better... Read more
Published on 18 April 2005 by Elberry
LA Takedown the pre release for heat.
I have watched this and Heat. If you own both watch this first. The story is the same, with a few minor changes. The characters in this lack punch, but it is still a good film. Read more
Published on 31 Mar 2003 by Brian O'Donoghue
A landmark to the cops and robbers genre
Micheal Mann's cops and robbers thriller, also a trailer copy to the by far superior "Heat". Read more
Published on 13 Aug 2000
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