Film Review — Heat
★★★★★ Pacino and De Niro play yin-yang cop and crook in Michael Mann’s flawless crime epic
A master thief and his proficient crew draw the attention of an obsessive LA detective, beginning a cat-and-mouse scramble for success and survival.
“Not as good as Batman Begins.” My friends could barely contain their bewilderment as I blurted out this blunt confession, having just watched The Dark Knight for the very first time. Don’t get me wrong, the much-lauded sequel is deserving of its acclaim, but the reason for my initial indifference has firmly remained my biggest criticism of Christopher Nolan’s gritty superhero movie.
And that’s this: The Dark Knight was as much a Batman movie as it was Nolan’s attempt to remake Heat.
Like Nolan, I, too, am very much in love with Michael Mann’s legendary nineties crime saga that, almost thirty years later, remains the genre’s gold standard. A direct remake of an unsuccessful TV pilot, the far less tantalisingly-titled LA Takedown, Mann makes the most of his second chance with the material, assembling some of the industry’s finest, in front of and behind the camera.
This, as the kids like to say, is one hell of a glow-up.
Heat is an effortlessly cool film. An immersive experience that puts you into the heads and hearts of the heroes and villains on both sides of the law. From darkened alleys in the dead of night, to neon-drenched apartments, to the hills overlooking a glistening sea of city lights, Mann and cinematographer Dante Spinotti capture just about every look Los Angeles has to offer. It’s a rich aesthetic oft-imitated but never quite replicated, while also the best and worst tourism advert a city could possibly have.
The iconic action sequences — a rock and roll truck heist, intricate bank robbery and subsequent apocalyptic showdown with the police — are so perfectly staged that the US army used moments for their own training purposes. The film’s wave of real criminal copycats was less of an achievement, deadly activities inspired partly due to Mann’s striving for that next-level realism.
But above it all — above the visuals, the action, Elliot Goldenthal’s awesome score with a soul-piercing cameo from Norwegian guitar virtuoso Terje Rypdal — are the monolithic performances from Al Pacino and Robert De Niro; two heavyweight titans chiefly responsible for the enduring legacy of this masterwork.
It’s in their performances that the film’s true objective is revealed. At its core, Heat is ultimately all about the cost of absolute obsession. Pacino and De Niro play two men, opposite sides of the same coin, hopelessly dedicated to their profession at the cost of everything else. They may only share the screen for a handful of minutes, but those moments demand complete and undivided attention. Two of the finest actors to ever do it, working alongside a director at the very top of his game.
It’s no wonder Nolan wanted to be a part of this so badly. When it’s this good, who wouldn’t?
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