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Heat, revisited 20 years on

IvaBigWun

With our current and interesting debate on who is the greatest between Pacino and De Niro on the forum I thought Id rewatch this gem over the weekend.

I've probably seen it 15 times over the years, its a favourite of mine. The things that grate a few years ago still do so now however:

For a film that has relationships at the heart of it, the ones between Hanna (Pacino) and his wife and in particular McCauley (De Niro) and Eady dont really gel together. The chemistry between the latter pair just isnt there and in hindsight Amy Brenneman as Eady was terrible casting. It jarred with me on first viewing and it still does so now.

The dialogue overall isnt great.

The shootout goes on too long.

But then there's the good stuff:

Two powerhouse performances from Pacino and De Niro. The much talked about coffee shop scene might well be the most overhyped of all time, but even twenty years on it still stands up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gyfIvMd4T0

It has a great stylish look. We expect nothing less from Michael Mann.

It shows that in situations like this there is rarely a clear difference between the Good Guy and the Bad Guy, there will always be shades in between.

It has one of the greatest closing scores of all time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwD9hNE4fIk

So a great film then. Ive heard some say even their favourite of all time. But its by no means perfect.

Are you a fan?

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Comments

ktulu123

Absolutely loved this back in the day, must watch it again

Oafley Jones

IvaBigWun wrote: »

For a film that has relationships at the heart of it, the ones between Hanna (Pacino) and his wife and in particular McCauley (De Niro) and Eady dont really gel together. The chemistry between the latter pair just isnt there and in hindsight Amy Brenneman as Eady was terrible casting. It jarred with me on first viewing and it still does so now.

Isn't it more their inability to have a normal relationship? That these guys are dysfunctional except when it comes to their career. That's what they do well, that's where their invested. It's a long time since I've seen it but I don't remember Brenneman standing out for any reason. Is it her though, or is De Niro even capable of selling that side of the character you're looking for?

Great sound design. It's mid 90s, so I also don't have to put up with the Viper system.

edit: I'd also not sure if I did see it again, If I could judge in isolation. I'd find to hard separate out from the rest of Mann's output and his fascination with Alpha types. For me, there's this uncomfortably adolescent "Walter Mitty" type quality adulation to the whole thing. I picture him annoying "Andy McNabb" between takes on set, getting him tell some stories, and then disappearing into his trailer for some alone time. I think Alan Partridge would get on well with him.

JaseBelleVie

An absolutely brilliant film. One of the best heist films of all time.

And as for the shootout going on too long? I thought it was brilliant. Frequently voted among the best film shootouts of all time. The high energy and frenetic pace makes it thrilling and shocking all at the same time.

Also, for those of you who may be interested, Michael Mann made another version of Heat back in 1989. A made-for-TV offering called L.A. Takedown. Obviously, Heat is by far the better film and is more polished, has more character development and is just far more impressive in general. But L.A. Takedown is interesting and some familiar faces from American TV crop up (Michael Rooker being one of the more prominent). It also has a really epic and cheesy 1980's American synth movie score. :P

But yeah, I think I'll watch Heat this evening now. Thanks for reminding me, OP!

Bipolar Joe

I think the shoot out is the best in any film I've ever seen. The way it's got no music, just the guns ringing out and echoing around the streets is fantastic.

IvaBigWun

Could the two people who voted "No" please explain why? Thanks.

IvaBigWun

Bipolar Joe wrote: »

I think the shoot out is the best in any film I've ever seen. The way it's got no music, just the guns ringing out and echoing around the streets is fantastic.

For me it is the most unrealistic part of the film. As notorious as the LA police are there's no way that many innocent bystanders would have been risked for four criminals.

catallus

IvaBigWun wrote: »

The dialogue overall isnt great.

"[T]he director isn't transcribing real life, he is choreographing its myths, and especially the myths of male conflict: Mann is a mano a mano man. He thinks in battles. In a Mann film, even when the hero is alone on screen with a telephone, he battles with the telephone."

"The hardest thing for a literary critic to accept about the movies is that the writing in them is finally beyond analysis, because a large part of the writing is in its genetic code...if the casting is right and the emotion is unmistakable, it doesn't matter what the characters say. They can say "Let's violate his ass" and we will pretend to understand, because we have already understood."- Clive James.

In that diner scene when the characters speak these lines it seems that the writers are saying that what is left unsaid is as important as what is said:
"AP:Seven years in Folsom. In the hole for three. McNeil before that. McNeil as tough as they say?
RdN : You looking to become a penologist?"

A great movie that took all the power of the history of film and condensed it brilliantly into a beautiful thriller.

shazzerman

Sifting through the [cinematic] detritus, we come to Heat. A masterpiece. One side of the argument: the female characters, and their relationships with their men, let the film down. The flipside: the film is considerably enriched, as an example of the crime genre, by including strong women (yes, strong) who are not afraid to call out their men on all this macho bull**** (okay, Mann has Venora say a couple of arch lines that many complained were right out of a Making Modern Relationships Work manual - but Justine gave as good as she got, with Hanna getting all self-righteous about his angst and how he has to hold on to it...). Some plot points jar: why did McCauley need to include a total unknown quantity - Waingro - in their otherwise meticulously planned armoured truck heist? The simple answer is that Waingro was needed, as his character is possibly the most integral one in terms of getting the narrative strands to stitch together - structurally, Waingro is crucial, even if he is a metaphorical stress fracture in titanium. I'll buy that. I'll also buy that Richard Torena will spit "slick" out just as Vincent is leaving, thus giving Hanna Neil and his whole damn crew.
People talk about Hanna and McCauley being two sides of the one coin - but how about extending that a bit? McCauley's crew is almost a mirror-image of Hanna's. Okay, Hanna has a Native American working for him, McCauley has a Mexican; but during the shootout, blonde good-looking Chris gets shot in the shoulder, and blonde good-looking Detective Schwartz is shot in the arm (and during the central bank heist, McCauley's crew has picked up an African American getaway driver, mirroring Hanna's African American Sergeant Drucker); Hanna's right-hand man (Bosko) is killed - McCauley's right-hand man is killed (Cheritto). Ah, the postmodernistic, dead 'tec duality of man.
These are real people (and, yes, the famale-male relationships help here too). But it's cinema, pure and simple. A contradiction? Let me put it this way: I wish McCauley hadn't smiled ruefully, bathed in white light, and swerved the car to take care of that last loose end (Waingro) before heading off into iradescent algae-inflected freedom; but Waingro said it himself (only he was too thick to realise its full implications) - "He's real thorough - he ain't gonna forget about you." I wish that happened in the narrative. But, cinematically, the ending is sheer perfection.

IvaBigWun

shazzerman wrote: »

Sifting through the [cinematic] detritus, we come to Heat.

Great post. But I doubt many will read it unless you paragraph it better.

Cork boy 55

IvaBigWun wrote: »

Could the two people who voted "No" please explain why? Thanks.

there is something off about it
The cast where universally miscast
The two leads where too old
I preferred L.A . takedown.
although the gunbattle was very well done
that said still a good movie just something not right

shazzerman

IvaBigWun wrote: »

Great post. But I doubt many will read it unless you paragraph it better.

You see me doin' Paragraph-Formatting Academic-Prose Exercises with a "Born-To-Write" tattoo on my chest?

IvaBigWun

shazzerman wrote: »

You see me doin' Paragraph-Formatting Academic-Prose Exercises with a "Born-To-Write" tattoo on my chest?

Not from here no

Its actually a very well written assessment of the film, but as it stands at the moment (as a wall of text) I dont think many will read it.

happysunnydays

IvaBigWun wrote: »

For me it is the most unrealistic part of the film. As notorious as the LA police are there's no way that many innocent bystanders would have been risked for four criminals.

It's a piece of entertainment not a documentary.

NotCominBack

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

MfMan

Cork boy 55 wrote: »

there is something off about it
The cast where universally miscast
The two leads where too old
I preferred L.A . takedown.
although the gunbattle was very well done
that said still a good movie just something not right

Any film containing Wes Studi and William Fichtner can always be watched but their presence is counter-balanced by Val Kilmer and the usually poor Tom Sizemore throwing tough-guy shapes. Mann has often, correctly, been criticised for being more style, less substance and here he failed completely to rein in Pacino's unrestrained approach. (In fairness he managed him much better in The Insider). Cleverly, De Niro realised that by even doing very little in the film, he would still emerge with more credit than Pacino.

If you want to discuss a near-classic later film of Pacino's with a great closing score, re-watch Carlito's Way, a surprisingly quite excellent gangster film about double-dealing, betrayal and thwarted dreams.

IvaBigWun

happysunnydays wrote: »

It's a piece of entertainment not a documentary.

A film is as realistic or not as the director sets it out to be. You cant have a film seeped in realism the way Heat is and then have a shootout that would never happen in LA (or any American city).

Im all for "suspension of disbelief", I think it can be (some) film's role to take us into other worlds. But Mann laid down a gauntlet of keeping everything as true to life as possible in this film,

Until the shootout begins.

Gatling

IvaBigWun wrote: »

A film is as realistic or not as the director sets it out to be. You cant have a film seeped in realism the way Heat is and then have a shootout that would never happen in LA (or any American city).

Im all for "suspension of disbelief", I think it can be (some) film's role to take us into other worlds. But Mann laid down a gauntlet of keeping everything as true to life as possible in this film,

Until the shootout begins.

What are makes you think the shootout is too much and wouldn't happen in reality

Captain Chaos

It's based on a real shootout that did happen in the states. Two men wearing very heavy body armor form head to toe and armed with a few assault rifles each held off police on the streets for an hour or so. The police handguns and shotguns could not take them down so a few of them went to a local gun shop and got a few AR15 assault rifles to take them down.

Actually that happened in 1997 but it wasn't far off what Heat showed on screen.

Username here

A fantastic film - definitely one of my favourites. So many brilliant moments in it.

IvaBigWun

Gatling wrote: »

What are makes you think the shootout is too much and wouldn't happen in reality

In reality? It would never happen. Simple as. The LA police have been under a microscope ever since the Rodney King incident

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OauOPTwbqk

LA police aside, Id love to see a link to one bank heist in history in a major city where the police took to firing on the criminals like that at the risk of killing people passing by.

In the film's reality?

1) The money was insured. The bank would have got it back.

2) Pacino's character seemed to have a lot of empathy about him (his love of his step daughter, the hugging of the prostitute's mother when she's freaking out) and wouldnt have let innocent bystanders get shot down for the sake of "getting his man"

Cork boy 55

Captain Chaos wrote: »

It's based on a real shootout that did happen in the states. Two men wearing very heavy body armor form head to toe and armed with a few assault rifles each held off police on the streets for an hour or so. The police handguns and shotguns could not take them down so a few of them went to a local gun shop and got a few AR15 assault rifles to take them down.

Actually that happened in 1997 but it wasn't far off what Heat showed on screen.

TWIC

the shootout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

Theres a movie about that as well
44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/44_Minutes:_The_North_Hollywood_Shoot-Out

indough

IvaBigWun wrote: »

In reality? It would never happen. Simple as. The LA police have been under a microscope ever since the Rodney King incident

you should look up the north hollywood shootout

phenomenalcat

The support cast in this film
Is unreal , ted Levine was buffalo
Bill in silence of the lambs and mo szyslak hank azaria is sleazy Marciano. Al pacino eye gouging Henry Rollins particularly memorable too. Soundtrack wise mobys mix of joy divisions new dawn fades a cracker

IvaBigWun

Captain Chaos wrote: »

It's based on a real shootout that did happen in the states.

indough wrote: »

you should look up the north hollywood shootout

Ok fair enough but

seven civilians were injured

Im fairly sure I saw many civilians shot dead in the Heat shootout.

Regardless of what happened in the film, it is crazy that real lives were put at stake for the sake of 300k during The North Hollywood Shootout

IvaBigWun

We now have 3 people who dont like it. Two have come forward to explain themselves.

We await the third

catallus

Public poll should be public to smoke out these philistines!!!!

JP Liz V1

phenomenalcat wrote: »

The support cast in this film
Is unreal , ted Levine was buffalo
Bill in silence of the lambs and mo szyslak hank azaria is sleazy Marciano. Al pacino eye gouging Henry Rollins particularly memorable too. Soundtrack wise mobys mix of joy divisions new dawn fades a cracker

Kilmer is great in it too

IvaBigWun

catallus wrote: »

Public poll should be public to smoke out these philistines!!!!

IvaBigWun

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Kilmer is great in it too

As was Ashley Judd. A very under rated actress if ever there was one.

Now starring in things like "Dolphins Tale 2" unfortunately.

Agricola

Been years since I saw it, great film. Full of great moments but the awesome bang of those assaults rifles reverberating off all the high rise buildings still sticks in the mind!