Heat (1995)Director: Michael Mann
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Amy Brenneman, Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Ashley Judd, Danny Trejo, Ted Levine, Diane Venora, Natalie Portman, Kevin Gage, William Fichtner, Hank Azaria
Last year when I started making a concerted effort to watch more films my primary focus was trying to see things I hadn't seen before. Trying to fill in gaps in my film experience, see those films I'd been meaning to see but hadn't got around to it. While I'm still very keen to see new films, at the moment I'm feeling like I want to revisit a lot of films. Things I've seen before, maybe a couple of years ago, and quite enjoyed but haven't got around to watching again because my priority was unseen films. So I came up with a bit of a mental shortlist of films I wanted to try and see again before the year was through, so I could include them in this blog, and Michael Mann's Heat was on it.
Neil McCauley (De Niro) is a master thief. Calm, controlled and precise he lives by the motto "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." Vincent Hanna (Pacino) is a master detective. Emotional and intuitive, he relies on his gut instincts. Hanna is called in to investigate the robbery of an armoured car which resulted in the murder of four security guards. He is soon on McCauley's tail. As Hanna gets closer and closer to him, McCauley and his team have to decide whether to split or to go through with their plans to pull a big money bank job. The temptation to make one last big score is too great and McCauley and his gang decide to hit the bank anyway. But Hanna and his police are ready for them.
What you have in Heat is two movies rolled into one. You have an excellent, high action heist movie, about a team of expert thieves and the police trying to catch them. You also have a very thoughtful, psychological drama about a master detective and a master thief with a great deal in common. This dual nature of the film is reflected in the picture's two most notable scenes. The first is the shootout as McCauley and his crew try and escape from their bank heist. This is a big, loud spectacle of a scene, which sprawls over a number of city blocks with both the police and the criminals using big automatic weapons. It is a scene all about action and noise. The other scene is an intimate conversation over a cup of coffee between Hanna and McCauley. This scene explores the mutual dependence of the thief and the detective. They are yin and yang. This is a quiet, still scene, all about character, but every bit as engaging as the shootout.
Heat contains an interesting focus on the women in the lives of the main characters. Hanna marriage with his third wife, Justine (Venora), is in trouble. McCauley compromises his 'nothing you can't walk out on' rule by falling for Eady (Brenneman). His partner Chris (Kilmer) also has a wife, Charlene (Judd). The women in the lives of these men feature very prominently in the story, not so much because they are central characters, but more so in terms of the influence they have. Heat contains a real struggle between men who are obsessed with their work, addicted to their lifestyle, and the desire of their women to domesticate them. I don't mean this in a 'ball and chain' kind of way, suggesting that the female characters restrict the men, rather that their presence forces them to engage with that side of their life. Hanna is a crummy husband and step-father because, as a homicide detective, he "live[s] among the remains of dead people." Even when he is present at home, he is not emotionally present. McCauley is adamant that he is alone but he isn't lonely, though he grows attached to Eady. This focus on the relationships of the central characters adds an extra level of depth to the heist narrative.
The big selling point for Heat was that it was the first time that Robert De Niro and Al Pacino would share the screen. They were, of course, both in The Godfather Part II, but given their characters inhabited different time periods they never came face to face. In Heat not only do they get to share the screen, the narrative is set up in such a way that these two titans are actually going head to head. In actual fact, their two characters only really come face to face in two scenes in the film, the aforementioned coffee scene and the film's finale at LAX airport. These two scenes though are riveting viewing. However, I think it is fair to say that neither De Niro nor Pacino quite live up to the very lofty standards they have set for themselves. They are both good, but neither really at the top of their game. In terms of the head to head you'd have to say that De Niro gives the stronger performance of the two, there are a couple of scenes where Pacino just falls back on yelling when he could have done something a bit more interesting.
Despite being very highly regarded now, Heat did not receive a single Oscar or Golden Globe nomination. One award that it did get though was Val Kilmer's win at the MTV Movie Awards in the category of Most Desirable Male, undoubtedly one of the more prestigious awards going around.
As brilliant a film as it is, I can't help but feel that Heat is a film which tends to get slightly overrated. I think the 'event' of having two of the cinema's greatest actors sharing a screen for the first time tempts people to remember this film as being slightly better than it actually was. It is very, very good. It's a very detailed and very clever thriller and is easily Michael Mann's best film. It's a legitimate four/four-and-a-half starts kind of film. But I don't think it is one of the true classics.
Last year when I started making a concerted effort to watch more films my primary focus was trying to see things I hadn't seen before. Trying to fill in gaps in my film experience, see those films I'd been meaning to see but hadn't got around to it. While I'm still very keen to see new films, at the moment I'm feeling like I want to revisit a lot of films. Things I've seen before, maybe a couple of years ago, and quite enjoyed but haven't got around to watching again because my priority was unseen films. So I came up with a bit of a mental shortlist of films I wanted to try and see again before the year was through, so I could include them in this blog, and Michael Mann's Heat was on it.
Neil McCauley (De Niro) is a master thief. Calm, controlled and precise he lives by the motto "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." Vincent Hanna (Pacino) is a master detective. Emotional and intuitive, he relies on his gut instincts. Hanna is called in to investigate the robbery of an armoured car which resulted in the murder of four security guards. He is soon on McCauley's tail. As Hanna gets closer and closer to him, McCauley and his team have to decide whether to split or to go through with their plans to pull a big money bank job. The temptation to make one last big score is too great and McCauley and his gang decide to hit the bank anyway. But Hanna and his police are ready for them.
What you have in Heat is two movies rolled into one. You have an excellent, high action heist movie, about a team of expert thieves and the police trying to catch them. You also have a very thoughtful, psychological drama about a master detective and a master thief with a great deal in common. This dual nature of the film is reflected in the picture's two most notable scenes. The first is the shootout as McCauley and his crew try and escape from their bank heist. This is a big, loud spectacle of a scene, which sprawls over a number of city blocks with both the police and the criminals using big automatic weapons. It is a scene all about action and noise. The other scene is an intimate conversation over a cup of coffee between Hanna and McCauley. This scene explores the mutual dependence of the thief and the detective. They are yin and yang. This is a quiet, still scene, all about character, but every bit as engaging as the shootout.
Heat contains an interesting focus on the women in the lives of the main characters. Hanna marriage with his third wife, Justine (Venora), is in trouble. McCauley compromises his 'nothing you can't walk out on' rule by falling for Eady (Brenneman). His partner Chris (Kilmer) also has a wife, Charlene (Judd). The women in the lives of these men feature very prominently in the story, not so much because they are central characters, but more so in terms of the influence they have. Heat contains a real struggle between men who are obsessed with their work, addicted to their lifestyle, and the desire of their women to domesticate them. I don't mean this in a 'ball and chain' kind of way, suggesting that the female characters restrict the men, rather that their presence forces them to engage with that side of their life. Hanna is a crummy husband and step-father because, as a homicide detective, he "live[s] among the remains of dead people." Even when he is present at home, he is not emotionally present. McCauley is adamant that he is alone but he isn't lonely, though he grows attached to Eady. This focus on the relationships of the central characters adds an extra level of depth to the heist narrative.
The big selling point for Heat was that it was the first time that Robert De Niro and Al Pacino would share the screen. They were, of course, both in The Godfather Part II, but given their characters inhabited different time periods they never came face to face. In Heat not only do they get to share the screen, the narrative is set up in such a way that these two titans are actually going head to head. In actual fact, their two characters only really come face to face in two scenes in the film, the aforementioned coffee scene and the film's finale at LAX airport. These two scenes though are riveting viewing. However, I think it is fair to say that neither De Niro nor Pacino quite live up to the very lofty standards they have set for themselves. They are both good, but neither really at the top of their game. In terms of the head to head you'd have to say that De Niro gives the stronger performance of the two, there are a couple of scenes where Pacino just falls back on yelling when he could have done something a bit more interesting.
Despite being very highly regarded now, Heat did not receive a single Oscar or Golden Globe nomination. One award that it did get though was Val Kilmer's win at the MTV Movie Awards in the category of Most Desirable Male, undoubtedly one of the more prestigious awards going around.
As brilliant a film as it is, I can't help but feel that Heat is a film which tends to get slightly overrated. I think the 'event' of having two of the cinema's greatest actors sharing a screen for the first time tempts people to remember this film as being slightly better than it actually was. It is very, very good. It's a very detailed and very clever thriller and is easily Michael Mann's best film. It's a legitimate four/four-and-a-half starts kind of film. But I don't think it is one of the true classics.
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