Before I got a DVD player and a Blockbuster Online account, the employees of my local video store used to know me by name. I was in there all the time renting as many movies as they’d let me, and then I’d take my stack home and always have a bunch of movies to watch. For me, for some reason I’d love to watch movies that were on two different video cassettes. First of all, this signified the movie was really long and I’d be getting more for my money. I mean for the same price, I could rent either Happy Gilmore or The Godfather. Sure they weren’t all good, but during this run I saw JFK, The Godfather Trilogy, and Casino. One of my favorites from that time period was Michael Mann’s Heat.
Now, during this period (we’re talking about my last year in High School here), I wasn’t that familiar with Mann. I had seen Last of the Mohicans in the theater, which I did really like, but I’d never seen any of Mann’s crime films such as Thief or Manhunter. I didn’t even know Mann was the creator of Miami Vice. It was the other two names on the front cover that made the difference for me. With Pacino and DeNiro in the same movie, this was a done deal. These were two of my favorites (aren’t they everybody’s?) going at each other for the first time. What I’d get would surpass all my expectations.
Heat Starring Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Val Kilmer, and John Voight. Directed by Michael Mann.
What I really love about this movie is that it’s more than just the struggle of two men. Really, it’s the struggle of four. Sure Heat’s about Pacino’s Lt. Vincent Hanna trying to track down DeNiro’s uber-thief Neil McCauley, but its more about these men having to be two different identities; their professional one and their personal one. They’re both the best ever at their jobs, but at home they’re not even half the same person.
The way Mann constructs this film plays with this dichotomy within the characters to the hilt. Much of the film shows the men completely in their element, working their next score or tracking down killers, and then Mann will cut to a scene of one of the other character within their failing marriage or simply being alone. It’s a masterful setup that never gets old. It brings a depth to these characters that is miles above your average crime film. This is one of the prime reasons why Heat endures.
DeNiro’s introduction in this film is also expertly assembled. You don’t even really know what he’s doing at first. He simply appears in a hospital and wordlessly walks through it. Calmly, coolly, he stalks through corridors until he finds an ambulance. He gets in it and drives away.
I love this introduction. Mann doesn’t hold our hand and tell us exactly what McCauley is doing. We’re just observers who are along for the ride. The director takes his time here, in no hurry to get to the movie’s first action scene. We see McCauley’s partner, Val Kilmer’s Chris Shiherlis, buying explosives. We’re introduced to Tom Sizemore’s Michael Cheritto, another of McCauley’s crew and their crew member Waingro (a scary Kevin Gage).
Then in a flash, the movie explodes into action. Trucks crash, explosives go off, and machine guns come out. Surprisingly, Mann is quite economical with his action. Most “action” directors would go overboard with this type of sequence, turning it into a gratuitous exercise. The way Mann is able to stay away from Michael Bay territory is in the details. We see how precise McCauley’s team is as they bust open an armored car. We’re mesmerized at how clinical they are, knowing response times and exactly how much explosive they’ll need. It’s only when a loose cannon goes off do things turn ugly.
Even here at this junction you get to the heart of DeNiro’s Neil McCauley. He’s a man who takes pride in his work, even if it is against the law. Everything is analytical to him, and he doesn’t get emotionally involved with the job if he can help it. Only after someone messes with his system and brings uncertainty to it does he react with violence. We can see later on, it’s in these moments when he’s not taking down scores that he falters.
He meets a young woman in a coffee shop and the meeting is awkward. He seems uneasy and mistrustful, not used to genuine human contact. It takes a second of clarity to realize this woman, Amy Brenneman’s Eady, is simply looking for company and finds it with him.
From the heist and its aftermath we immediately switch to Pacino’s Vincent Hannah. Now, with Pacino I’ve always looked at two different periods in his acting. First, there’s the quiet, assured newcomer who stunned audiences in The Godfather. He seemed to be saying everything with his eyes and body language more than he ever used his voice. This is the Pacino of Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon. This is the Pacino who made Michael Corleone transform from a man we respected to the personification of evil at the end of Godfather II. Then there’s everything past Scarface, which is the loud, quotable Pacino with catchphrases galore. This is the Pacino with specific inflections in his voice that make him sound like no other actor in the world. This is the “Hoo-ah” Pacino that won an Oscar. From this period to the present, for me anyway, no other role comes close to Lt. Vincent Hannah.
To some degree, there is a mixture here of both of Pacino’s personas. Let’s face it, Pacino could play this role in this sleep. Playing cops and gangsters to Pacino is like…well…DeNiro being able to play a cop or a gangster. What surprises you is the amount of humanity that he is able to impart into this performance. Sure Pacino has his loud, larger than life scenes. A scene in which he interrogates an unsuspecting Alan Marciano (Hank Azaria), also known as the “she’s got a GREAT ASS” scene, is one of my favorite scenes of all time. I’ve had that scene on loop so many times its not even funny. I love that when he’s working, he’s like a bulldog. He completely takes over whatever room he walks into. Watch any scene where he’s on the job and he is almost always in complete control. Much like McCauley, Hannah cannot stand any slip ups or someone being unprofessional.
What are missing from many of his performances (though a lesser performance from Pacino is still better than a great performance from 90% of other actors) are the moments when he leaves his vociferous persona behind. I think Heat’s Hannah has moments when he’s allowed to drop the “Hoo-ah” and just act. You can see the sadness in his face as he realizes his marriage is falling apart again. Its there when he shields a mother from her dead child. Its there when he goes to save his step daughter (Natalie Portman) from killing herself. Most of all, its there when Pacino and DeNiro have their first scene together onscreen.
There are moments you simply relish as a lover of cinema. In the last couple of decades, few scenes can match up to the sheer awesomeness of having Pacino and DeNiro on screen together. The best part is, they’re not yelling, or fighting, they’re just acting. Hannah and McCauley come to a sort of cathartic understanding about each other. They’re two sides of the same coin. I love this particular exchange.
Vincent Hanna: You know, we are sitting here, you and I, like a couple of regular fellas. You do what you do, and I do what I gotta do. And now that we’ve been face to face, if I’m there and I gotta put you away, I won’t like it. But I tell you, if it’s between you and some poor bastard whose wife you’re gonna turn into a widow, brother, you are going down.
Neil McCauley: There is a flip side to that coin. What if you do got me boxed in and I gotta put you down? Cause no matter what, you will not get in my way. We’ve been face to face, yeah. But I will not hesitate. Not for a second.
And then finally,
Vincent Hanna: I don’t know how to do anything else.
Neil McCauley: Neither do I.
Vincent Hanna: I don’t much want to either.
Neil McCauley: Neither do I.
This is powerful film making and an unforgettable scene. In the end, this may be one of the greatest scenes in either of the actors’ career, and I would also say the greatest in the career of the film’s director.
An incredible bank robbery and chase scene marks the film’s best action sequence. Again, it never seems gratuitous, but reaches an epic grandeur that few actions sequences have reached. There are very few instances where the scene comes off as “Hollywood”. There’s rawness to the sequence, as if the action were so laid bare that this shootout could actually be happening. Masterfully edited and executed, there’s a controlled chaos that I haven’t seen since, save for maybe Black Hawk Down.
On the run and desperate to get out with both his life and his girl, DeNiro’s McCauley shines for the remainder of the film. De Niro is able to finally bring vulnerability to his character, as he lays out everything about him to his new love Eady and that they must run to stay alive. With so many of DeNiro’s modern performances not living up to par (Rocky and Bullwinkle, City by the Sea and 15 Minutes to name a few) its wonderful to see him here in all his glory in a role that can rightfully measure up to his work with Scorsese and Coppolla.
Nearly lost in the shuffle between these two titans are nice performances from Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman, Tom Sizemore, and Diane Venora. Each is given adequate screen time, they’re just not as memorable with Pacino and DeNiro at the top of their game like this. I do hate that Dennis Haysbert is slighted so badly in this film as his part may be the only one that feels tacked on. It really doesn’t amount to as much as Mann would have liked it to. Much better thought out is Kevin Gage’s Waingro, who comes off as pure evil and relishing it every moment.
Special mention has got to be made about the film’s cinematography by Dante Spinotti. No Crime film I’ve ever seen that didn’t have the words Godfather in the title has ever felt more epic to me than this one, and much of that credit belong to Spinotti. This film is gorgeous to look at, with the color of blue seeping into much of the film’s visual. This is a tour de force of visual beauty, while still retaining some grit to keep the film grounded within its genre.
I was shocked to learn that some of this is actually based on real events and people. According to imdb.com, Hannah was based on a real detective from Chicago, who was obsessive about tracking down a criminal named Neil McCauley. Apparently, even the Diner Scene was based in some fact, as the actual Cop met McCauley in a casual situation. Apparently, the film was at least partly in production for years before it was finished, as on the DVD for Manhunter actor William L. Petersen was actually going in to read for Heat when he got the part of Will Graham in the Red Dragon adaptation. Actor Dennis Farina, who also stars in Manhunter, and who was actually a former Chicago Officer himself, served as technical advisor on Heat.
In the end, these two giants of the screen face off in a duel to the death. There is no one else to help them or take away from their struggle. This is the heart of the film in a nutshell, as each must cast aside their personal likes of each other and all the baggage they have, to simply do what they must because it’s all that they are.
Heat stands in my opinion as one of the best films of the 1990’s and one of the greatest Crime films of all time. I don’t really believe any involved have reached these heights since this point, though Mann has certainly come close with The Insider and Collateral. As it is, Heat stands as a testament to a filmmaker at the top of his game and two of the greatest actors of all time who were nearly as good as they’ve ever been.
Picture Credits: impawards.com, DVDbeaver.com, outnow.ch
