Review: Heat (1995)

A master thief named Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) known for not having any attachments he can’t readily alleviate himself of and leaving no loose ends, goes on a big score with his tight-knit crew, plus a last minute replacement named Waingro (Kevin Gage). The armoured car heist goes off as planned until Waingro, who it turns out is a short-fused psychopath, gets an itchy trigger-finger and kills a guard. McCauley wants Waingro dead for his screw-up, but he manages to flee. Meanwhile, we meet police lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), who has a nagging wife (Diane Venora) and a needy stepdaughter (Natalie Portman) whom he loves, but who really needs her dipshit birth father around. A robbery-homicide cop investigating the armoured car robbery scene (which of course turned fatal thanks to idiot whack-job Waingro), the workaholic Hanna becomes obsessed with tracking the gang down, to the increasing strain of his marriage. Tom Sizemore, Val Kilmer, and Danny Trejo play the other members of McCauley’s gang, whilst Ted Levine, Wes Studi, and Mykelti Williamson are the cops. Ashley Judd plays volatile Val Kilmer’s unfaithful wife Charlene, Amy Brenneman plays a nice, naïve girl McCauley meets, whilst Dennis Haysbert turns up as an ex-con looking to go straight, but finding it hard not wanting to punch his arsehole boss Bud Cort in the dick. Tom Noonan plays wheelchair-bound Kelso, who provides the necessary intel for the heist, whilst Jon Voight is McCauley’s trusted aide Nate, who acts as a fence and gets McCauley in touch with Kelso. William Fichtner plays a corporate schmuck named Van Zandt, who is a remote but important part of the heist as well, with Henry Rollins as his bodyguard. Hank Azaria turns up as a slimy jerk that Charlene is running around with, Jeremy Piven plays an unscrupulous doctor, Xander Berkeley plays an unwanted user of Hanna’s TV (just watch the movie), and Tone Loc plays an informant.

 

A remake of his own “L.A. Takedown”, writer-director Michael Mann (“The Insider”, “Collateral”) padded it out to almost 3 hours with this 1995 remake and instead of two virtual unknowns, cast screen titans Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in the lead roles. The result is one of Mann’s best films (His version of “Last of the Mohicans” is still his best film, though), and one of the better crime flicks of the 90s. Is it too much movie? Yep. But what do you cut out? For me, I’d just lose the subplot involving Dennis Haysbert’s crim-trying-to-go-straight character, but that’s about all.

 

It’s a sensationally well-shot film by Dante Spinotti (“Last of the Mohicans”, “The Insider”, “Public Enemies”), and very, very cool. Mann and Spinotti got the look completely wrong for the later “Public Enemies”, but get it right here. I’m not normally a fan of the filtered look many films these days tend to have, but like “Terminator 2” here’s a film from the 90s that shows you how to do it right. I wish today’s filmmakers would look back on these two examples and learn. It looks cool without being monochromatic or murky. Spinotti should’ve won an Oscar for his work here, but somehow wasn’t even nominated. The music score by Elliot Goldenthal (“Last of the Mohicans”, “Demolition Man”, “Batman Forever”) is excellent, and typically Mann-ish. The rock elements to the score are particularly cool. Mann definitely knows how to shoot action, as this film’s few moments of action are exciting and some of Mann’s best-ever work. The freeway shootout in particular is clearly one of the best action set-pieces of the 1990s. The efficient crim vs. veteran cop storyline is a lot of fun to watch, even if it’s a bit more fun watching Robert De Niro and his carefully laid plans slowly unravelling than it is to watch Al Pacino’s family life unravel. Watching De Niro and his crew do what they do is definitely some of the film’s best stuff. 

 

De Niro’s performance is understated perfection. This guy is efficient, economical, and always watchful…and his plans still unravel. Also, he may be cool and calm, but if need be he can still be a violent, threatening force to be reckoned with. I love his ‘empty telephone’ speech, where the guy’s voice and intimidating, authoritative reputation are enough to get the message across that if you fuck with him, you better hope you better be damn good at disappearing without a trace. It’s easily one of De Niro’s best 90s performances, just look at his last scene with Amy Brenneman and tell me that’s not masterful understated acting. For a lot of years I really hated Al Pacino as an actor and didn’t even like him in this film on first viewing. ‘Shouty Al’ drives me up the wall, I prefer some of his more measured turns in films like “Serpico”, “Dog Day Afternoon” and the first two “Godfather” films. However, seeing the film again, I have to say that this is mostly a fine performance from him. There’s really only one instance of ‘Shouty Al’ in a scene with a perfectly cast Hank Azaria (and if you’ve ever watched “TMZ”, you’ll be intimately familiar with one line in particular), and it’s awful but it’s only one scene, and Azaria holds up his end of it perfectly. I get that Pacino and De Niro are attempting to deliberately give different performances, with De Niro underplaying it, but in this one scene Pacino is just embarrassing. The relationship between Pacino and his nagging wife played by Diane Venora is frankly not very interesting to me, but that’s partly due to Venora, mostly to do with her character, and not at all to do with Pacino. Venora to me comes off as an unsympathetic presence on screen, but the non-understanding wife of a cop is for me one of the least likeable of all screen characters. I’m sorry, but this guy’s job is vital, it’s time-consuming, and you bloody well signed up for it. Zero sympathy for someone like that I’m afraid, especially when played by a cold fish. The best thing for me about the Pacino scenes is the performance by young Natalie Portman as his clearly troubled stepdaughter. It’s never specified in the film, but from what one can gather, she’s clearly got a lot of anxiety (and possibly depression) issues, most stemming from a need for her birth father, who barely has any time for her. People forget it at times, but Natalie Portman really can act, and this for me was the first film to indicate it. She’ll break your heart in this one, and with very few scenes to work with. Cut out the marital disharmony stuff and have the Portman situation be the main liability/drama for the Pacino character, instead. So I guess that’s one way of bringing the running time down a tad. I’ll have one more thing to say about that later.

 

The rest of the cast is mostly excellent, but for me the three standouts in particular are Tom Sizemore, Val Kilmer, and Kevin Gage in his best role to date. Hell, it’s probably the best role Sizemore has ever had, too. As De Niro’s dependable but irritable right-hand man, this is Sizemore showing just how solid a character actor he can be when he’s in the right frame of mind. Things seem to be going alright for him health-wise these days, so I hope Hollywood will start calling once again with decent roles in bigger films. On his day, he’s bloody good, and boy is he bloody good here. His ‘death stare’ at a cameo-playing Stephen Root in a diner is absolutely chilling. Val Kilmer is an erratic talent, perhaps that’s why he’s so damn convincing playing a guy who, whilst perfectly professional as a criminal, is a bit of a volatile wreck on a domestic level. He’s perfect as the kind of guy who throws a hissy fit and then pisses off on his motorbike to cool down. A feisty Ashley Judd is also well-cast as his wife, and boy are these two characters the wrong two people to be married to one another. Kevin Gage is one of the least well-known members of the cast then and now, and aside from a short stint in prison I’m not sure why. I’ve liked him in every film I’ve seen him in, and he absolutely steals his every scene here, in frigging amazing company. Playing the last minute replacement Waingro, this guy isn’t just a loose cannon, he’s a serial killer amongst a tight-knit group of thieves, and it’s a fascinating dynamic. He’s a constant source of unpredictability, playing basically the Timothy Carey role. That is, the grand tradition of irritating, unhinged dickheads who fuck everything up for the rest of the criminal gang. It’s a highly underrated and really quite unnerving performance. Waingro’s an idiot, but he sure is a frightening and creepy one. Even Henry Rollins looks scared of him in this. Then again, Henry Rollins gets bitched out by 5ft 0 Al Pacino at one point. Yeah, that’s not a reflection on real-life whatsoever. There’s a particularly hilariously tense scene at a diner where no one wants to look at the idiot Waingro, probably because everyone wants to do what De Niro is about to do to him. In a semi-relevant aside, I would love to hear some behind-the-scenes stories on what the mood on set was like, because it wouldn’t surprise me if Gage, Kilmer, and Sizemore weren’t the easiest guys to get along with (Kilmer and Sizemore hated each other on the later “Red Planet”), and you’ve got notable hard-arses Danny Trejo and Henry Rollins around, not to mention titans De Niro and Pacino. Man, that must’ve been some shoot.

 

Other performers to look out for are a very solid Jon Voight, an excellent cameo by Tom Noonan, and a perfectly slimy William Fichtner. Amy Brenneman isn’t earth-shattering as De Niro’s clueless girlfriend, but along with her small stint on “Frasier”, this is still my favourite work of hers. She’s pretty good. Dennis Haysbert is really good as a crim looking to go straight, but it’s his character that for me is the other element I would’ve taken out of the script. Yes, he does eventually play a part in the plot, but it’s not terribly necessary, to be honest and his few scenes do add up, eating up screen time. Good performance, but he doesn’t have to be here in a film that, if shorn of a few minutes here and there could’ve been an absolute classic. It’s still a really terrific film, but we’re talking potential brilliance here. It’s just too much of a good thing. Meanwhile, Ted Levine, Wes Studi, and Mykelti Williamson deserve better than to play ‘guys who talk to Al Pacino’, but if their roles were beefed up, the film would be 6 hours long. As for the infamous diner scene between De Niro and Pacino, it’s a good scene. The begrudging sense of respect that the cop and crook have for one another, plus the baggage that the two actors bring with it have you hooked. It’s just a shame that their subsequent, and not especially memorable pairing up in “Righteous Kill” had to happen. I don’t suppose it takes anything away from this scene, but honestly they should’ve just left it at this, unless the project was really worthy (“Righteous Kill” wasn’t awful, but there’s a reason why it didn’t hit theatres in Australia).

 

Overlong, but tense, exciting, well-acted, directed, scored, lensed, and written cops vs. crooks flick. Probably one of the best films of its type, and a memorable (if brief) meeting between two screen icons. I love this movie more every time I see it, and now welcome it to my Top 200 Films of All-Time list. 

 

Rating: B+