Michael Mann entered the pantheon of "god-like" directors a decade or so ago, despite never really having earned his place there - his name alone seems to be enough to generate excitement, but nobody really seems to know why. You just assume that Michael Mann is a great director because he made Heat, and also because everybody keeps telling you that he's a great director. So here's an example of a "good" filmmaker with a lot of shortcomings, whose reputation has sort of ushered him through the door. Somebody needs throw him out. Michael Mann's Wikipedia page denotes the following (no doubt he added this part himself): "Total Film ranked Mann No. 28 on their 100 The Greatest Directors Ever and Sight and Sound ranked him No. 5 on their list of the 10 Best Directors of the Last 25 Years, Entertainment Weekly ranked Mann No. 8 on their 25 Greatest Active Film Directors list." Michael Mann? Seriously? There's no doubting the fact that Michael Mann's films look amazing; he has a unique visual style that is almost always complimentary. But where's the substance? Heat might well be his greatest achievement, but there's not enough meat - it's a two hour story padded out to three. The Last of the Mohicans? More interested in how it looks than the story it tells. The Insider? Surely one of the most overrated movies of the past 20 years? And what else? Miami Vice was downright terrible; Public Enemies was cold and boring and a waste of a good premise. It might seem petty to just reel of Michael Mann films and reduce them to a few words to make a point, but that is kind of the point; Mann is a good filmmaker (no more, no less) who is frequently mistaken for some sort of deity.