Heat

Heat (1995)

Runtime: 170 minutes

Directed by: Michael Mann

Starring: Many great names, including Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Wes Studi, Amy Brennaman, etc.

From: Warner Bros./Regency

Truly Tone-Loc's finest on-screen moment.

Heat falls into the category of movies I had seen before, but not in many years. Last night finally seemed like the right time to revisit something I remembered as being pretty great back then. Not that I was too worried, yet I was still relieved my opinion was little-changed.

The movie is much more than just Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro acting face to face for the first time; after all, the mostly forgotten 2008 movie Righteous Kill had those two in many more scenes together and yet that story was totally generic and lame. Here, it's an epic tale of a hard-nosed cop and his colleagues vs. a hard-nosed criminal and his colleagues as the latter commits daring heists and the former tries their hardest to stop those extremely clever crooks.

I recall that in the past, some did not care for this being almost 3 hours long and all the time that is spent w/ the families of the two leads. I disagree; boredom has never set in with the film through multiple viewings and those moments provide plenty of detail about both men. It proved that both cop and robber had their positives and negatives, and they both were too focused on their work to have any meaningful romantic relationships... at least ones that would last. When the climatic meeting between the two acting legends finally occurs, the conversation is more level-headed and placid than you'd expect from the protagonist and antagonist; it was not yelling and bluster and over the top theatrics that suddenly becomes bathos... yeah, Old Al does yell sometimes but it's not a constant, thankfully.

Naturally, a Michael Mann picture both looks and sounds great, and this film does not break that trend. What an incredible cast it has overall: Kilmer, Sizemore, Wes Studi, etc. Plenty of familiar faces occupy smaller roles too: Danny Trejo (I had forgotten his character was simply known as Trejo, as if in real life Danny is involved in well-executed heists), Jeremy Piven, Dennis Haysbert, Henry Rollins, and even Tone-Loc in by far his finest on-screen moment. The length allows for many characters to be woven in and out of the rich tapestry that is this script; important characters disappear for awhile, but that is because they are brought back at the right time in the story.


This is a crime film that is a must-see if you love the genre and somehow this has eluded you.