“Heat” (1995) is one of the few films featuring both Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, its overall cast is so deep that Danny Trejo (as Trejo, the most conveniently named character of his career) doesn’t crack the first page of the IMDB list, its centerpiece is a muscular shootout that stunned audiences with real-life gunfire sounds that echo off the buildings, and it captures Los Angeles with an alternating lushness and grittiness that makes us forget the city is the most common setting for movies.
We don’t lose sight of the costs
Yet for all of that, the brilliance of writer-director Michael Mann’s nearly 3-hour masterpiece is that we never lose sight of the costs for any of these people; the family, relationship and personal moments never knock “Heat’s” balance out of whack. They aren’t the quiet moments, they are the essential moments.
That said, “Heat” is also a sharp portrayal of the specifics of the cat-and-mouse game between expert thieves and law enforcement. Among the most intense scenes is a showdown that never materializes. One of the officers accidentally ticks his weapon against the wall of the metal surveillance truck. Across the street, the thieves think they hear something in the quiet night, and they bail on the plan.
“Heat” (1995)
Director: Michael Mann
Writer: Michael Mann
Stars: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer
De Niro plays master thief Neil McCauley and Pacino plays dedicated police detective Vincent Hanna, but “Heat” is not a story of good and evil, it’s a story of two men making their way in the world. In the famous scene when the rivals talk over coffee, they admit that they can’t stop what they do; it’s the only thing they’re good at.
And we actually like both of them; Neil is not a killer at heart. For all his targets in this film, his biggest is former colleague Waingro (Kevin Gage), who kills security guards in an opening armored-truck heist when Neil believes it is not necessary. This puts extra “heat” (attention from law enforcement) on them and increases their legal punishment if they are caught, but also I suspect Neil is bothered that those guards are dead when they didn’t have to be.
Interestingly, De Niro is the cuddlier of the two acting legends in “Heat.” Seeing that his colleagues have things in their lives other than the job, he lets himself fall for Eady (Amy Brenneman, later of “Judging Amy”). In his tender scenes with her – including beautiful balcony shots that emphasize the city of lights (I also appreciate Elliot Goldenthal’s delicate score here) — we know he’d never harm her.
Pacino on the edge
Meanwhile, Pacino’s Vincent keeps viewers – and every character he speaks to – on edge. This is one of those oft-imitated performances where Pacino shouts certain parts of sentences and is dead calm in other parts, but it’s totally effective and highly entertaining. But other moments show Vincent hasn’t lost his humanity after all the horror he has seen. When he stops a mother of a victim from getting to the corpse, it turns into a hug.
And in one of “Heat’s” many examples of giving a full arc to a minor character, Natalie Portman’s Lauren – the daughter of the woman Vincent is seeing, Justine (Diane Venora) – keeps popping into his life. The confused kid is intrinsically drawn to this one adult she can trust.
That fascinating dichotomy of hardness and softness is present in both lead characters. Neil slams Waingro’s head into a diner table after the heist screw-up; Neil is not naturally unhinged, but you don’t want to cross him. Vincent is actually scarier, though, especially illustrated in a scene where he enters Justine’s house to find she’s with another man, Ralph (Xander Berkeley).
Putting yourself in Ralph’s shoes is downright terrifying. He wants to politely depart but Vincent orders him to sit back down, and it’s clear to viewers that’s all he can do; his masculinity is shattered, but maybe he can escape without being beat up. Vincent utterly controls this moment even though he’s at his most emotionally vulnerable; indeed, all he can do to get one over on Justine is to pettily storm out with his TV under his arm.
Not mere bullet fodder
In the famous mid-film, post-bank-heist shootout in the streets of LA, we lose some cops and robbers, but they aren’t mere bullet fodder. They have full arcs, and could’ve continued to the end of the film just as easily. In this way, Mann illustrates how violent deaths cut down not just a life but also one’s life story.
Because the cast is so loaded, we can’t guess who will and won’t make it to the end. Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Ashley Judd, Wes Studi, Ted Levine, Dennis Haysbert, William Fichtner … I mean, damn.
Yet the whole budget wasn’t spent on paying actors, because the City of Angels pops off the screen under Dante Spinotti’s lens, capped by a stunning showdown in a field outside an airport with planes roaring on takeoffs and landings. As the rest of the populace moves around the globe, Neil and Vincent are stuck in their roles, and there’s a tragic poetry to that.