Heat Review

        The 90s shifted cinema like no other. Whatever was popular in the prior decade was no longer applicable. Gone are the days of the musclebound action movies that have defined the careers of some of the most beloved actors. Action films are more cerebral and had influences from elsewhere in the globe. Films like Heat reinvent everything as far as crime drama and action films. 

1. Cat and Mouse

        This is my first film that I watched of Michael Mann. For those of you not aware of who he is, you can thank him for introducing the world to Hannibal Lecter with his adaptation Manhunter. He gained more acclaim with his film The Last of the Mohicans and immediately followed up that success with this gem. Heat was originally supposed to be a tv series, but it didn’t go anywhere beyond the pilot episode. Mann ultimately re-worked the script and it became L.A. Takedown.

        The film was based on a real police officer chasing a criminal in Chicago. Of course, liberties were taken and the level of realism as far as the gunfights are concerned is, well I’m getting ahead of myself. The story is really gripping and it’s one of those where the runtime nearly clocks in at 3 hours, but with what’s happening doesn’t feel like a chore to sit through. Anyways, we follow bank robbers led by Neil McCauley as we him and his partners rob an armored truck. 

        As the job was successful, they ultimately left a clue where Pacino’s Lieutenant Hanna uses every available method in his department to get McCauley and his cronies. Now, the key thing when watching the movie is that it’s dialogue heavy, but it’s worth it since we see that the overall actions that the main characters do influence their lives. More so on Hanna who’s so dedicated to his job where his own personal life is nonexistent.  

        One would think that we would get a very superficial portrayal of the criminals. They’re bank robbers and there’s an assumption that they basically make the heist happen just by luck. We got none of that, as McCauley is so in his level when planning out the heist. He’s the most level headed of his clan that he’s calculating and seemingly on top of what the LAPD has to tracking and stopping him. 

        Of course, the gunfights and robberies themselves are the main highlight of the film. When watching this with a soundbar, it hits you when we see the initial truck robbery and the climactic bank heist turned shootout. It’s even better that the director wanted the rifles to fire in the streets so that it could retain that echoey sound. The whole sequence is really engaging when we see Val Kilmer hold his own. In fact, the way he shoots and reloads has been used in Army training.

        I think the overall theme for the film is that the main characters do what they do to fill in that void in their lives. For as much as McCauley has everything, he’s lonely and meets a woman who maybe can fill in that gap. Hanna is too obsessive with his job that it slowly dissolves a marriage that he has. It’s one of those things where there’s a price to devoting into something where it can be alienable.

        We see that when we have those brief moments with McCauley's mates that anything of a personal life is just nonexistent. With Kilmer's character being a compulsive gambler, and one of them being so unhinged that he resorts to killing. It's a thing when the "Heat" is the thing where it gets them going like a rush. 

2. De Niro and Pacino 

        So, I’ve talked a lot of about them, I think the best moments between them is when we see them spying on each other. While Hanna gets a tip of another heist, he practically spies on McCauley to arrest him. Inevitably, it gets flipped when McCauley uses a fake site and spies on the Lieutenant and his coworkers. It feels like a cat and mouse chase, each getting tenser since we have no idea as to where the scene is going to go. 

        The definitive moment is when they grab a cup of coffee. When Hanna pulls over Neil and invites him to drink. There’s a level of tension since we get to know the both and how they’re very much alike. I think when they’re talking, the level of honesty is admitted when they say they’re good at what they do. To me, the whole thing feels like a game, where they have to keep playing until one of them loses. 

3. Legacy

        Of course the movie was a hit, and honestly the fact that it didn’t even get nominated is a travesty. Thinking about it now and even looking at the influence it had on other media was unexpected. It’s one of those things when I played the Grand Theft Auto series that there were missions that had bank heists. Which is the reason why the missions felt like the moments in the film. They successfully captured that level of intensity. 

        Surprisingly, in the rare moments of real life imitating art, it was seen as the rationale behind an actual bank heist that happened in California. It was called the North Hollywood bank robbery, while no actual amount was stolen, it did spiral out into a gunfight with casualties. To date, it’s the most intense and gun battle with regards to the U.S. police. 

        To at least not end this review with a downer, while watching the film I was constantly reminded of a Christopher Nolan film. Specifically, how Heat was a direct influence to The Dark Knight. It makes sense since there’s a level of procedure being shown and how Batman is sort of like Hanna when he uses everything in his arsenal to get the Joker. The opening bank heist especially is a callback or direct love letter to Heat. 

4. Overall

        Heat is one of the best crime films you’ll see. Check it out.