Review of Heat (1995) by Jonathan B — 07 Nov 2016

Michael Mann made one of the greatest crime movies of the 1990s when he brought us Heat. He was helped in this venture by securing an absolutely stellar cast. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are flawless in this film where they play opponents on the opposite side of the law.

It is a complex game of cat and mouse where Pacino plays LA cop, Vince who is investigating the violent gang lead by De Niro's character, Neil. The two share the screen only fleetingly but there's a pivotal role where they meet over a coffee and the atmosphere just crackles with electricity.

Being a Michael Mann film, it naturally looks amazing. As slick as a 1980s Athena print. It also has some of Mann's hallmark action sequences which are at times rather violent, but not gratuitously so.

There's a scene of a bank heist which, when I first watched this movie back in the 1990s, was I thought the best such scene I'd ever seen. Twenty years on it still looks amazing, if rather OTT.

Heat remain a slick, intelligent, stylish movie. It is elevated above merely looking good by a great script, superbly delivered by an ensemble of great Hollywood actors who were directed by a terrific master of his craft at the height of his game.