Seeing as he made his debut with a crime film about a perfectionist taking down one last score, it should come as no surprise that writer-director Michael Mann has a history of not being able to let things go, often revisiting motifs and premises from previous projects and sometimes re-editing movies years after their release. On this note, the Brooklyn Academy Of Music’s BAMcinématek will be kicking off a retrospective of the writer-director-producer’s work this Friday, and along with rare screenings of the original theatrical cuts of Last Of The Mohicans and The Keep, they’ll be unveiling a revised version of Mann’s underrated pulp techno-thriller Blackhat.
The biggest flop of Mann’s career, the film—which, in typical Mann fashion, borrows plot elements from a 2002 Mercedes-Benz commercial—is known to have been substantially re-structured in the editing process. Details on the new cut, which will be getting a one-off screening on February 10, are scant, and it’s unknown whether there are any plans to release it. For now, the best Mann fans can hope for is a plane ticket. Time is luck.