The apex of this is his 1995 masterpiece, Heat, which is as much about the way that its main characters relate to their wives and girlfriends as it is about the cat-and-mouse game between master thief Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) and detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). As McCauley and Hanna inexorably come closer to their final confrontation, their domestic dramas and efforts to deal with romantic and familial commitments are as fascinating as their elaborate plans to stage and foil heists. Hanna, already on his third wife and with a rebellious teenage stepdaughter, makes no apologies to his wife for being late for dinner after yet another late night at work. "I've got dead bodies," he says. "Sorry about the chicken." He mocks her when she suggests he ought to share more about his work with her, that it might help him process the horrors he faces on the job.
But he also quietly works hard to be a better father to his stepdaughter than her own biological father ever is, and never once appears anything less than deeply in love with his wife, even when she deliberately lets him catch her cheating so that he knows how much she resents the time he spends away from home. Mann's men are always quiet in their dignity and their virtue, saying more with actions and a few well-placed words than the average sensitive male does with a soliloquy. "I say what I mean, and I do what I say," Hanna tells his wife by way of the only explanation she'll ever need as he heads back to work after saving his stepdaughter from a suicide attempt.
"You're one of those guys that do instead of talk," says assassin Vincent (Tom Cruise) to cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) in 2004's Collateral. Mann's men are all about action, stepping up to their responsibilities, standing up to those who might abuse them—not making speeches about it. "I'd rather play than talk about it," fired tobacco executive Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) tells his former bosses in 1999's The Insider. He's referring to golf, but in the context of the tense scene, with the corporate slimeballs not-so-subtly threatening his livelihood, it's obvious that Wigand is talking about much more.
With their backs against the wall, Mann's heroes go to great lengths to protect their values, and, most often, their families. The meek Jeffrey Wigand is finally inspired to speak out about tobacco company corruption when his family comes under attack, and, in Collateral, the similarly mild-mannered Max finally takes a stand against the sociopathic Vincent when Vincent threatens to kill Max's mother. In 1986's Manhunter, FBI agent Will Graham (William Petersen) is reluctant to track a serial killer because the last one he caught came after his family.
Although work responsibilities almost always put wedges between couples in Mann's films, his heroes never mistreat their wives or their children, and if they have to leave them behind, it's a sacrifice to protect the families from the evils the men must confront out in the world. The most heartbreaking moment in Heat comes near the end, as Hanna and the LAPD are closing in on McCauley, who's convinced girlfriend Eady (Amy Brenneman) to run away with him. Seeing Hanna only yards away, McCauley hesitates for a moment at the door of the car with Eady inside before running in the opposite direction, hoping not only for his own escape but also to spare Eady from being dragged down with him. The look on Eady's face as she realizes McCauley will be gone from her life forever is devastating, and says more than any dialogue between the two of them ever could.
Mann's manliness isn't just about how his male characters relate to women, though; it's also about how they relate to each other, and almost all of his films have two central male characters who push each other to be better people, to rise to the best of their natures. In Heat, it's Hanna and McCauley; in Collateral, Vincent and Max; in The Insider, Wigand and 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino); in Manhunter, Graham and his boss, Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina); in 1992's The Last of the Mohicans, it's the warrior Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) and British military officer Duncan Heyward (Steven Waddington). Sometimes these pairs are antagonists, sometimes friends and often both. Even when the characters are at odds, though, they treat each other with respect and reserve, perhaps understanding that they, like Mann himself, are part of a slowly dying breed of real men.