Heat (1995)

Heat (1995)

7/10

Starring

Al Pacino

Robert De Niro

Tom Sizemore

Diane Venora

Directed by Michael Mann

Michael Mann has been behind some very memorable crime dramas. The Heat is seen as one of his classics. There is something about this movie that captures your attention and has you watching through two hours forty minutes of pure drama, without you knowing that you have devoted that much time. The movie has a nice pace to it, and when the shooting starts it was so well written by Mann that other things with same high intensity were also happening. That keeps you on the edge of your seat until the credits come scrolling.

The movie starts with a crew who committed a well planned hit on an armored car and got away with bearer bonds worth over $1 million. They contacted the person who owned the bonds and agreed to sell it back to them, that in itself is a story the movie had boiling. The police investigated the crime which also resulted in the death of the men guarding the car.

The officer in charge of the investigation is Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) and the leader of the crew is Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro).

Vincent is hell bent on catching the crew and is sure they will commit more crimes, the only thing he has going for him is that he knows the name of one person in the crew. Vincent was right that the crew had one crime still boiling.

While all this is happening we get to have a glimpse into the clumsy life of not just Vincent, but Neil and some of his crew men. It seems the only thing these people have going for them is the chase of stealing for the crew and for Hanna the rush of catching them.

The movie then develops into a tight drama where everything and everyone gets intertwined and the way it looks the only way it will end is if someone parts for the other.

The movie itself is based on a real life criminal Neil McCauley. McCauley was known to be a well calculated criminal, all of this were portrayed in the movie. The real Neil was tracked down and stopped by a Detective Chuck Adamson, whose name in this movie is changed to a fictional Vincent Hanna. The coffee scene portrayed here in this film actually happened in real life.

What I really liked about this movie is that both De Niro and Pacino had only like two screen time together in this long movie, but what terrific lines were delivered at the coffee scene.

The movie was a box office success and although it did not gather accolades, it is still seen by many as a classic crime drama.