Retro Film Review: Heat (1995)

Creative crisis of modern Hollywood reflected itself in flood of remakes, most of them turning out to be inferior to original films. One of the few examples of 1990s remake being better than original is Heat, 1995 action drama written and directed by Michael Mann. This was hardly surprising, considering the source material – little- known 90 minute pilot episode of failed television show - and the fact that both films were made by the same director. On the other hand, Heat is better known for being first film actually pairing two great actors of our times - Robert de Niro and Al Pacino.

In this film de Niro and Pacino play two men who share many things but just happen to be from the opposite sides of the law. Neil McCauley (played by de Niro) is leading small group of top professional criminals operating in Los Angeles. They are specialised in armed robberies and tend to hit their targets quickly, with military precision and without any unnecessary violence or leaving trace. Their latest stunt, however, ends almost disastrously thanks to the new team member, trigger-happy Waingro (played by Kevin Gage). What was supposed to be "clean" robbery gets complicated with three dead bodies and McCauley and his men would now have to deal with the man who happens to be dedicated professional just like them. Lt. Vincent Hanna (played by Al Pacino) of LAPD Robbery/Homicide Division quickly gets on McCauley's trail. McCauley also learns that he is under police supervision, but that won't prevent him from staging another big heist. What follows is a game of cat and mouse during which both men begin to respect each other, knowing that one day they would have to shoot each other.

When discussing Heat, one of my country's film critics described it with a simple phrase "more is more". L.A. Takedown, the original version, was only 90 minutes long. For his feature film version Michael Mann enjoyed not only bigger budget and more respectable actors, but also more creative freedom. That freedom, which proved to be unusual for today's Hollywood standards, reflected in Heat being almost twice as long as its original. Today three-hour length in Hollywood seems to be reserved only for epics; it is hard to imagine average audience sitting in theatres for three hours in order to watch seemingly simple and prosaic cops & robbers film. But Mann knew to use that opportunity and reward audience's patience. First of all, action scenes are much longer, much more realistic and much more spectacular (one of them - shootout on Los Angeles streets after botched robbery - was even repeated in real life few years after film's production). But the action, just like in any great film, is subservient to plot and characters. There Mann again excels, keeping all plot ingredients of the original versions and adding extra material. In some cases, this works (subplot involving McCauley's assistant, played by Val Kilmer, and his wife, played by Ashley Judd) while in other cases it only brings unnecessary melodrama (including annoying character of Hanna's stepdaughter, played by Natalie Portman).

Another areas in which Heat beats L.A. Takedown is casting. The original film also had some good actors, but few in modern Hollywood had such variety of talented character actors who appear briefly in small, almost cameo roles, but nevertheless leave great impression - Danny Trejo, Ted Levine, Wes Studi, Hank Azaria and Dennis Haysbert are just few among them. Taking de Niro and Pacino to play two protagonists, on the other hand, proved to be something of a mixed blessing. Unlike Alex MacArthur and Scott Plank in original version, those two are simply too iconic for the audience to completely suspend their disbelief; the famous scene in which McAuley and Hanna share coffee is more of a clash between two acting giants that the characters they are supposed to play. De Niro and Pacino, on the other hand, play their characters competently, although Pacino can't resist temptation to go over the top in a scene or two. The audience probably won't mind - not only because of good story, realistic characters, exciting action scenes and effective finale, but also because of excellent cinematography by Dante Spinotti and moody musical score by Elliott Goldenthal. Michael Mann again shows that he cares about style as much as about substance. The result is not only one of the best remakes in recent times, but also one of the best action films even for those who care little about original.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on January 5th 2004)

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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/949-heat
Critic: AAA