Having developed his skill as a master of contemporary crime drama, writer-director Michael Mann displayed every aspect of that mastery in this intelligent, character-driven thriller from 1995, which also marked the first onscreen pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The two great actors had played father and son in the separate time periods of The Godfather, Part II, but this was the first film in which the pair appeared together, and although their only scene together is brief, it's the riveting fulcrum of this high-tech cops-and-robbers scenario. De Niro plays a master thief with highly skilled partners (Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore) whose latest heist draws the attention of Pacino, playing a seasoned Los Angeles detective whose investigation reveals that cop and criminal lead similar lives. Both are so devoted to their professions that their personal lives are a disaster. Pacino's with a wife (Diane Venora) who cheats to avoid the reality of their desolate marriage; De Niro pays the price for a life with no outside connections; and Kilmer's wife (Ashley Judd) has all but given up hope that her husband will quit his criminal career. These are men obsessed, and as De Niro and Pacino know, they'll both do whatever's necessary to bring the other down. Mann's brilliant screenplay explores these personal obsessions and sacrifices with absorbing insight, and the tension mounts with some of the most riveting action sequences ever filmed--most notably a daylight siege that turns downtown Los Angeles into a virtual war zone of automatic gunfire. At nearly three hours, the film qualifies as a kind of intimate epic, certain to leave some viewers impatiently waiting for more action, but it's all part of Mann's compelling strategy. Heat is a true rarity: a crime thriller with equal measures of intense excitement and dramatic depth, giving De Niro and Pacino a prime showcase for their finely matched talents. --Jeff Shannon
DVD features The true-life stories out of Michael Mann's childhood Chicago are the roots of this seminal crime drama 40 years later. That's just one of the tidbits from the 90 minutes of extras on a second disc. Most of the major talents (along with crime consultants) reminisce about the film a decade later with the usual quotient of praise versus interesting facts. Extra time for the film's showcase shoot-out and meeting between the two leads is well spent. Mann's commentary track is as serious as his movie and hard to get through. He's more relaxed in the extra features and is joined by his friends who became associates over the years (like cop-turned-actor Dennis Farina). The deleted scenes contain a few sequences that are implied in the film--the alarms taken out at the bank for instance--but there's nothing outstanding; it reinforces what good, prudent editing is used in the film. The transfer seems as good as the original DVD release. --Doug Thomas
(22 votes)
2.
When Al Pacino and Robert De Niro square off, Heat sizzles. A tale of a brilliant L.A. cop (Pacino) following the trail from a deadly armed robbery to a crew headed by an equally brilliant master thief (De Niro).
(18 votes)
3.
A Los Angeles Crime Saga
When Al Pacino and Robert De Niro square off, Heat sizzles. Written and directed by Michael Mann, Heat includes dazzling set pieces and a bank heist that USA Today's Mike Clark calls "the greatest action scene of recent times." It also offers "the most impressive collection of actors in one movie this year" (Newsweek). Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore and Ashley Judd are among the memorable supporting players in this tale of a brilliant L.A. cop (Pacino) following the trail from a deadly armed robbery to a crew headed by an equally brilliant master thief (De Niro).
(17 votes)
4.
"Never have anything in your life you can't walk out on in thirty seconds..." is the motto of expert thief Neil McCauley (De Niro). After his next break-in, McCauley plans to retire from his outlaw life and move to New Zealand. However, Vincent Hanna (Pacino), a Los Angeles police detective, obsessively tracks McCauley's gang of thieves, who have left three security guards dead in an armored truck robbery. As the detective gets closer to tracking them down, the crooks plan another big heist, this time at a bank. Hanna soon gets a lead that helps him determine the identity of the criminal mastermind who engineered the thefts, and discovers McCauley is a man as driven and relentless as the detective himself.
Although he doesn't have enough evidence against the thief to make an arrest, Hanna convinces McCauley to join him for coffee, at which point the two engage in casual conversation and discover that their lives are remarkably similar. However, each man makes it clear he'll kill the other if necessary. Though they know the police are closing in on them, McCauley and his men risk going through with the bank job. A violent shoot-out and car chase result, but the criminals escape. Hanna continues to pursue them unceasingly, at the expense of his already-crumbling marriage. Eventually Hanna and McCauley face each other for the last time in a thrilling showdown at the Los Angeles airport.
With HEAT, director Michael Mann achieves the nearly impossible task of making three hours go by in a flash with his use of the hand-held camera for action scenes and a moody score that echoes the characters' emotions. Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, and others play characters that are also crucial to the plot, but never distract from the central conflict between McCauley and Hanna. The acting is outstanding, the story is riveting and the action scenes are breathtaking. Both De Niro and Pacino are perfect as two men driven to sacrifice nearly everything for their respective professions. With edge-of-your-seat action and insightful drama, HEAT is a crime film at its most intense and personal.
(17 votes)
Mooviees.com is not the official site for this film.
All editorial views and opinions expressed here are for entertainment purposes only.
<>
Movie Database
In Theaters
