'Heat' review

Originally written the week of Jan. 14th/04
Rating: **** out of ****

Michael Mann’s “Heat” could possibly be one of the greatest police tales ever made. It is an epic tale of crime and obsession between two men on opposite sides of the law. It is also perhaps the greatest meeting of two legends since “The Rumble in the Jungle” with Ali and Foreman in 1974. For the first time ever, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro share the screen. Though they had both featured in ‘The Godfather Part II’, they could not share the screen because their characters lived in two different periods. However, in this film they actually have their first on screen encounter. It is one of my all time favorite scenes in movie history.

The storyline is simple. Pacino plays Officer Vincent Hanna, a master cop who is hunting a master criminal, Neil McCauley played by DeNiro, and his crew, which features Val Kilmer, Danny Trejo, Tom Sizemore and a very different performance for Jon Voight, but a great one nonetheless. This film is so much more than a vacant cop and robber picture. There are so many layers to this film that one can read. Hanna is a man driven through life only by his work. At the expense of his private life, he becomes obsessed with bringing criminals down, or as his wife states: “You search for the scent of your prey, and then you hunt them down. That's the only thing you're committed to. The rest is the mess you leave as you pass through.”

McCauley on the other hand, lives by the personal mantra of never attaching himself to anything that he “can’t walk out on in 30 seconds flat if he feels the ‘heat’ around the corner”. McCauley makes this statement, ironically enough, as he is falling in love with a woman.

Michael Mann’s screenplay is brilliant. He is able to provide us with at least 15 characters that are equally important, and develop them all without losing his audience for a step in the crowd. He can also take what could have been a simple cops and robbers action movie, and turn it into a story of people and emotions. It is an epic; and at 3 hours in length, it goes by faster than most films because of how engrossed in the characters you become. The pinnacle scene is the aforementioned collision between Pacino and DeNiro. Hannah tales McCauley in a car and then pulls him over, only to invite him out for coffee. These characters find out that they are not as different as they would have believed. In fact, under different circumstances they may have even been friends. The wit and spark in the dialogue during this scene is dead on. Mann writes these characters with such precision that we are able to delve into their minds and expose their flaws. Hanna, while being a top cop, is very neglecting of those he loves. McCauley, while being a sociopath, lives by a very strict set of values and rules.

Mann’s directing is superb. Few directors could direct a film of this scope and magnitude, as well as direct many of the biggest actors in the world in one film. Many would worry about the logistics of a story this complex. That’s a heavy responsibility, but Mann seems to handle it effortlessly, with little difficulty. This film is one of my top ten favorite films of all time.