HEAT

The Data Points

• Year Released: 1995

• Runtime: 170 Minutes

• Directed: Michael Mann

• Written: Michael Mann

• Produced: Art Linson, Michael Mann, Pieter Jan Brugge

• Starring: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman

• Oscars:

  • Won: Nothing

  • Nominated: Nothing

  • Should Have Been: Cinematography, Editing, Sound; if we’re being bold, Director and Picture

• IMDb Plot Summary: A group of high-end professional thieves start to feel the heat from the LAPD when they unknowingly leave a clue at their latest heist.

Why Heat is *Still* Great

Caper Value. I’m going to go on and praise a lot about Heat as a worthy drama and character piece, but at its core it’s a heist film. One of the leads is a robbery-homicide detective, and the other is the head of a crew of elite robbers. The detective wants to catch the robbers, who are in pursuit of one final score. This is nothing new in the landscape of film, and the heist genre often works in kind with other genres including in Westerns, Noir films, even in sci-fi films; criminals have been stealing money onscreen for as long as we’ve had moving images. It’s a fungible way to build conflict and create excitement. Heat is a masterclass in its depiction of robberies, deceptions, investigation by rogue detectives, surveillance, and is chock full of musclebound dialogue delivered by iron-willed cop and robber alike. Heat wasn’t even alone as an excellent crime film that transcended the genre in 1995; it stands with, in my opinion above, The Usual Suspects, Se7en, and Casino.

Normally I give the performances their own in-depth section, explaining the multiple layers behind what several actors are doing, but most of the performances here serve the function of big-budget heist entertainment value. I’m a fan of Val Kilmer’s slick, confident, surfer-bro persona; usually in heist stories, the #2 in the crew is a loose cannon ready to fly off the handle at a moment’s notice – not here. William Fichtner, Jon Voight, Danny Trejo, Ted Levine, Wes Studi, and Tom Sizemore all soak up their supporting roles, but it’s Kevin Gage as Waingro who steals the show. Props are also due to Ashley Judd, Amy Brenneman, and Diane Venora for making the “love interests” into as fully realized human beings as the script allows for. De Niro is fantastic as the slick, ice-cold thief Neil McCauley, but Al Pacino provides such a ridiculous range of a performance that is worth the price of admission alone.

Structure, Symmetry, and Drama. Despite being full of the heist tropes that have been thrilling audiences for the better part of 120 years, Heat redefined what the genre could be and left an influence that is still being felt today in both film and television. This innovation begins with how its story is told. In creating Heat, Michael Mann wasn’t just interested in telling a thrilling crime tale, but in relating the cop to criminal in a way that felt fresh and gripping. He does this by delving into the personal lives of his characters regardless of which side of the law they exist on and demonstrating that it’s impossible to untangle the personal from the professional in this world. It’s the personal stuff in the criminals’ lives that allows the investigators to make serious inroads, and it’s the personal stuff in the investigator’s lives that both pull them away from the investigation and push them deeper into it. Beyond integrating its subjects’ personal lives into the narrative, the film also painstakingly details the cascading causes-and-effects of the crimes, investigations, and surveillance tactics, creating an airtight narrative and a deep sense of intellectual and emotional engagement with what we’re seeing onscreen. Every detail matters and is accounted for in the telling of this tale, which is both compelling and highly influential; I think the greatest television show of all time, The Wire, took a lot of lessons on telling a longform crime investigation story from this film.

This scope in storytelling doesn’t just create an intricate narrative that eventually forces its leads into confrontation but generates an effective and interesting character study. One of the most revolutionary and lasting impacts of this film was its communication of the similarities between Pacino’s Vincent Hanna and De Niro’s Neil McCauley. Though most explicitly addressed when they share a cup of coffee in the middle of the film, the screenplay’s structure is constantly toggling between the professional hurdles and domestic situations that round them out as characters. On top of that, Mann and his editing team throw in some very clever match cuts to further drive this idea home throughout the movie’s runtime. Heat remains the key exploration of the relationship between cop and criminal in pop culture, but the idea of being interested in the psychology and personal lives of its characters has aged supremely well. Heat doesn’t just invoke police investigation, but an image of the heat being turned up on its characters’ personal lives until they reach a boiling point; in this film, the two are directly related.

Nowadays, Heat wouldn’t be made as a three-hour film, but as prestige television. Some of the films I love that feel influenced by Heat are The Dark Knight and The Town; the TV I love that feels influenced by Heat are The Wire, some of The Sopranos, and True Detective.

Technical Craft. Everything I just laid out – except for the mention of match cuts – could have been done in a book, and film is a visual medium. Fortunately, Michael Mann is a visual and technical wizard. Notorious for demanding perfection and a potentially excessive amount of takes, his calling cards are experimenting with film/digital technology, sound, and a commitment to naturalism; his actors train for months, he shoots on location, and he sometimes supplies full background dossiers on his characters so the actors can fully inhabit them. In the case of Heat, his criminals spent time with incarcerated robbers, his cops spent time with real cops, and both of those groups underwent firearms training. An L.A. native, Mann utilizes dozens of less-than-glamorous locations from the city in this movie which results in a tangible sense of authenticity. This creates a fascinating stew of the stylish and the realistic in this movie; I’m not sure if professional bank robbers dress as Neil does, but he and his crew handle their firearms with realistic precision and meet in places that exist but feel off the map. When they fire their weapons, Mann opted to use the sounds of the blank rounds live from the set, creating a uniquely immersive soundscape. Mann also plays around with camera types and angles throughout, but with the help of his editors and cinematographer Dante Spinotti, the film has a coherent visual style and color palette throughout. The result is a visually dynamic yet coherent stew full of style and naturalism that feels both realistic and cinematic at the same time, which is an incredible needle to thread.

John’s Highlight Reel

• Opening Heist. It isn’t just the novelty of opening the film with a heist kickstarting the narrative that’s significant about this film, it’s the way that the heist unfolds. The buildup is tremendous, and the action is impeccably staged. We immediately gain an understanding of Mann’s approach to the film’s action scenes, which is to say loud and practical. Mann also communicates the crew’s professionalism and contrasts it with Waingro’s loose-cannon approach.

• Aftermath. If you want to know how to both tell a story and tell the audience how you’ll tell the story, pay attention to the paired scenes of Pacino’s Vincent Hanna and his crew casing the robbery crime scene with De Niro’s McCauley and his crew attempting to deal with Waingro in the aftermath of the robbery. This is the true introduction to our dueling protagonists, as they’re established as the leaders of their group, experts in what they do, and the path to their eventual collision is set.

• Metals Repository. Following one of the coolest-looking shots I’ve ever seen – a shallow-focus helicopter shot that shows the L.A. skyline before panning down to eventually find a van – we’re treated to a suspenseful scene that unfolds essentially free of dialogue. Mann communicates everything we need to know (the surveillance crew’s setup being blown and detected by Neil) cinematically, and we’re treated to the story’s first real turn. Where will the story go now that the heist crew is aware of the cops on their tail?

• A Cup of Coffee. One of the most iconic scenes of the ‘90s doesn’t just feature two all-time heavyweight acting legends sharing the screen for the first time after 20 years of buildup, but also nearly an hour and a half of buildup within this film. It’s an amazing release from the story’s mounting tension, but the perfect encapsulation of this movie’s central tenet: in this world these men choose to inhabit, they are can only relate with each other, despite their destiny to oppose and destroy each other. In a film with ice in its veins, it’s a fleeting moment of heart and humanity that never fails to register with me.

• Bank Heist and Shootout. Almost 30 years on, this scene still holds a place of honor amongst all shootout scenes for its immersive style, authenticity, and intensity. There’s no need for me to rehash everything it took to capture this on film; you can look that up yourself. All I’d urge is to dial this scene up again if it’s been a while. In the context of the story, this confrontation becomes emotionally intense and desperate.

• Mistaken Identity. Speaking of emotionally engaging, one of the film’s crucial subplots comes to a powerful head when Ashley Judd’s Charlene Shiherlis appears to cooperate with the police but surreptitiously warns away Val Kilmer’s Chris Shiherlis from the trap that’s waiting to ensnare him. It’s one of the smartest moments in a very smart movie that I find well-crafted and a clever inversion of the types of suspense that we’ve seen in the film so far.

• Final Confrontation. The final shootout/cat-and-mouse game between Neil and Vincent is very well staged despite being a predictable way to end the movie; the fact that this ending feels a little too Hollywood only reinforces the strength of the preceding material, and it doesn’t feel like there’s a better way to bring this story to a close. These two opposing forces, carefully crafted through script, direction, and performance were brought into headlong collision through a serious of cascading circumstances, most of which were out of their control. This is a very satisfying ending to what ultimately amounts to be an excellently made genre film, not that “genre” is anything close to a dirty word.