rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 1995
Directed by Michael Mann; produced by Art Linson, Michael Mann; written by Michael Mann
Starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi, Ted Levine, William Fichtner, Hank Azaria, Danny Trejo, Natalie Portman
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
'Heat' has one of the finest acting ensembles I have seen. Val Kilmer, Tom
Sizemore, Diane Venora, Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi, Ted Levine, Amy
Brenneman, Kevin Gage, William Fichtner, Danny Trejo, Hank Azaria, Ashley
Judd, Natalie Portman and Jon Voight. All these actors are stars or at least
very known by face. The top of the cream here is Robert De Niro and Al
Pacino as the two main characters. De Niro is bank robber Neil McCauley and
Pacino is the man who is chasing him, Vincent Hanna.
Every actor above belongs to McCauley or to Hanna. McCauley works with Chris
(Kilmer), Michael (Sizemore) and Trejo (Trejo). Nate (Voight) is the one who
arranges the scores. McCauley's girl is Eady (Brenneman), Charlene (Judd)
belongs to Chris. Justine (Venora) is Hanna's wife, Lauren (Portman) is his
stepdaughter, and in his detective team we learn to know Drucker
(Williamson), Bosko (Levine) and Casals (Studi). Waingro (Gage) is a guy who
messed up a job with McCauley and his crew and Rogert Van Zant (Fichtner), a
rich businessman, is also on McCauley's blacklist.
The movie opens with the job where Waingro messes things up, although they
do collect what they wanted. Because people got killed with this robbery
Hanna and his team are put on the case. From here on new characters are
introduced, the ones I mentioned above, and we learn to know all of them.
This is one of the best character movies I have seen. What happens with
McCauley and Hanna was not even the most important thing for me, although I
was curious. You sympathize with both characters and you don't want any of
them to lose.
Hanna finds out who he is dealing with but since he has no evidence he can't
arrest any of them. Instead, he shadows and hopes McCauley makes mistakes.
Halfway the movie Hanna is following McCauley and let him stop. He suggests
that they go for a cup of coffee together. Although De Niro and Pacino both
appeared in 'The Godfather: Part II' they never shared the screen. The
conversation they have, their first reel scene together, feels like
something great. May be because De Niro and Pacino are talking, two of the
greatest actors ever, or may be because their characters as well are persons
great in what they are doing. It doesn't really matter. The conversation is
what you will remember and the things said on that table are important for
the rest of the movie.
Like I said, you sympathize with both characters and when De Niro and Pacino
have their last scenes together you can't be sure of what will happen. This
is one of the great things in the movie, because it seems that the movie
doesn't take one of the two sides either. This is one of the best movie from
the nineties, not only because of De Niro and Pacino, but because almost
everything. The story, the characters, the sad score, the right editing for
all those characters and story lines and Michael Mann's direction are all of
an extraordinary level.