A perfect film. Can such a thing possibly exist? Well, unless you’re one of those tiresome, smug, moviegoers who lack any chill whatsoever, the answer us undoubtedly yes. Obviously, the decision to declare something as utterly flawless is an inherently personal one, but if you find yourself penalising films like Jaws for old school effects, Back To The Future for outdated views on Libyans and The Godfather because James Cann clearly doesn’t connect with that punch, then I’d argue that the fault probably lies more with your standards than the film in question. But making my argument all the more solid is the existence of Heat.
Crafted by Michael Mann and released in 1995, it’s reputation as an immaculate crime thriller still remain unblemished all these years later as one of the most comprehensive, complex and complete tales of cops and robbers we are ever likely to see and the fact that Mann manages to do it all in just under three hours remains one of cinema’s greatest miracles.
With the city of Los Angeles as our painfully slick backdrop, we follow both the crew of professional thief, Neil McCauley, and the team working under maverick LAPD Robbery Homicide Detective Lieutenant Vincent Hanna as they both inexorably circle each other. McCauley is every inch the quiet, controlled professional who has nothing in his life he can’t drop in thirty seconds if the authorities get too close, but Hanna proves to be a far more volatile sort, feeding off of his chaotic existence in order to make him the best at what he does.
After a weak link in their crew proves to be more trouble than he’s worth in a particularly problematic heist of an armored car, McCauley finds that he and his crew are now on the radar of Hanna’s crack team, which causes multiple aspects of his ordered existence to start to unravel. However, despite a troublesome ex-team mate in the wind and a money launderer looking for payback after his bearer bonds were jacked, possibly the most damaging thing to occur is a chance meeting with Eady, a graphic designer new to LA, who makes him question his solitary lifestyle.
Meanwhile, while Hanna attempts to wade through all the wreckage of his spluttering third marriage, he’s starting to discover that his prey is a step above the usual robbers he’s taken down over the years. But while the bulk of our attention is held by these two, polar opposites, the various people caught in their twin orbits also have their own lifes that’ll be disrupted by their choices.
McCauley’s devoted gang mate, Chris, is witnessing his gambling debts crush his marriage; reformed Donald can’t bare the grind of a normal life; Hanna’s young stepdaughter grows every despondent due to the dismissive attitude of her real and very absent father – everything contributes to where the story eventually goes, which will pit both McCauley and Hanna face to face on the streets of LA.
Whenever anyone argues that the best form of storytelling is television when it comes to delivering a complex tale with untold moving parts, Heat is always a great example to counter with as it juggles somewhere around twenty noticable speaking parts who all require some sort of arc or resolution, no matter how small. To be fair, it’s not like Mann didn’t have plenty of practice as he famously made a cruder, rougher version of this exact film back in 1989 in the form of L.A. Takedown and the fact that he’s already done a trial run works wonders. While both Robert De Niro’s McCauley and Al Pacino’s Hanna obviously hold court on their respective sides of the law, the balancing act performed by Michael Mann’s screenplay still continues to dazzle to this day. Everyone – and I do mean everyone – from Kevin Gage’s prostitute killing Waingro, to Jon Voight’s crusty middle-man, to Ashley Judd’s impatient spouse, get to boast fully fleshed-out characters who all get just enough screen time to create an entire living, breathing microcosm within the world of crime-based chicanery. Some TV shows fail to achieve this across an entire season and yet Mann achieves it all in a jaw-droppingly tight 170 minutes that not only feels like 120, but also has time to deliver two of the most memorable sequences of the entire decade.
The sheer amount of column space that’s been dedicated to that coffee shop convo and that gunfight should be ample testimony to how important they really are, but it’s certainly worth revisiting any chance you get. Watching De Niro and Pacino’s mirror image characters chat like two ordinary guys bristles with thematic payoff as it turns out that the quiet crook and the ranting cop have far more things in common than they’d like to admit. And then there’s that heist that sees a hefty cross section of the cast literally tearing up LA with deafening gunfire that still remains undefeated no matter how many times it’s copied.
And yet, as the cordite still stings our eyes, it’s the two leads who remain nothing less than utterly magnetic. Both actors play to their strengths (De Niro = introverted and controlled, Pacino = deranged and loud) and yet neither is allowed to out perform the other thanks to Mann’s iron clad grip on the material. McCauley’s brief, but doomed, love affair after years of self-inflicted solitude is genuinely touching as he gives up a shot of true happiness in order to settle any and all debts as the clock ticks down, while Hanna attempts to keep his splintering private life together and get the job done; but so delicate is the director’s touch, the film honestly does split things even-stevens between the two of them.
However, while Val Kilmer deserves a special mention for managing to be the only member of the cast who has a shot of approaching the two leads (not to mention that mid-firefight magazine change that famously got used as a training example), it’s Mann’s treatment of his beloved Los Angeles that takes the true supporting role.
Using the vast expanse of the LA skyline to both drip feed the emptiness our leads feel and give them a reason to get out of bed in the morning, the filmmakers pours his camera over highways, streets and parking lots, taking extra special care to drink in the scope of the place thanks to an extended, night-time helicopter ride through the buildings of the City Of Angels. For a film concerned about the ugliness of man, Mann sure makes it look fucking stunning and if there’s one single complaint I could aim at this unmitigated masterpiece, it’s that the director has struggled to match it ever since. Oh, he’s certainly come close a time or two, but if it makes you feel any better, no one else looks like they’re ever going to match it’s sprawl, artistry, or balance either. Simply put, this is a movie made about professionals, by professionals.
As McCauley famously keeps reiterating throughout the film – “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner”. Well, it’s been a helluva longer than 30 seconds, and we haven’t walked out on Heat yet. On the other hand, we also have Hanna screaming about women’s asses, but that’s neither here nor there…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 