Heat

Heat is director Michael Mann’s telling of a cat-and-mouse game between an LAPD officer (Al Pacino) and a career criminal (Robert De Niro) as one tails the other following a series of heists. Despite minor grievances of mine, the film stood out to me for overcoming one major problem (something I’ve personally struggled with in many films of similar duration): it made a three-hour runtime feel half that length. Supported both by high-octane action set pieces that have become the industry standard and two actors generally considered to be some of the greatest of all time, the film is engaging, exciting, and even funny at times.

But let’s get my nitpicks out of the way. First off, for a film that relies quite a bit on the action from a few high-intensity scenes, the blocking was oftentimes hard to follow. The first heist and even the LA bank heist that is so widely praised were quite difficult to calibrate. With so many moving pieces and many characters whose fates we care about, it’s paramount that the audience does not feel lost in the sauce with such frequent camera movements and a lack of clarity. I unfortunately found myself in this boat, despite how nerve-racking and adrenaline-pumping these scenes still managed to be.

Secondly (and much less importantly), the meaning of the title was a little too on the nose. There were frankly too many times where the “heat coming around the corner” was referenced, really beating the viewer over the head with the title card references. I did appreciate the foreshadowing of the ending that the meaning conveyed but merely felt it could have been done a little more subtly. McCauley’s (De Niro’s) choice at the end seemed spoiled as a result.

But in regards to my praise, which definitely dominated my opinion of the film, I’m struggling to find something to say that hasn’t already been said. I found Al Pacino’s performance to be particularly compelling, and his shouting interjections at random times were very funny to me. I applaud the film’s resistance to falling into the typical tropes of heist films (building a team, planning in a warehouse, etc.), and despite my minor blocking issues, found the action to definitely be one of the peaks of the film. It seems like Michael Mann has a definitive type of film he likes to direct—and in this case, that is absolutely a compliment.