Heat

Heat; crime, USA, 1995; D: Michael Mann, S: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Tom Sizemore, Val Kilmore, Jon Voight, Diane Venora, Ashley Judd, Mykelti Williamson

Los Angeles. Gangster Neil uses a truck to smash an armoured vehicle and rob the money, but one of his associates, Waingro, kills all three police officers, so he expels him from his team for disobedience. Lieutenant Vincent, whose private life is consumed by his job, is passionately seeking to arrest Neil. Neil also helps his associate Chris to make up with his wife and son. When they try to rob a bank, they give up when they spot Vincent, but they attack another bank and two of them dies there. The wounded Chris escapes while Neil is bringing his girlfriend to the airport. There Vincent finds him while he is chasing after Waingro and kills him in chase.

Legendary actors Al Pacino and Robert De Niro already starred together in one memorable film, "The Godfather II", but didn't share a single scene together, and their second collaboration, crime film "Heat", is holding on to that same principle, except in the moment where the camera in the car shows their faces as they watch the road, as if to emphasize how they are "too big" for the screen together. Pacino and De Niro are, of course, as always top notch in their roles as a cop and a gangster and the movie was hailed by critics, yet the story doesn't seize with particular freshness in the standard heist genre. The 158 minutes of running time seems to long at moments so the concentration can get lost, mostly due to the overstretched scene of empty walk and conventional dramaturgy. But the film, like almost every Michael Mann picture, has it's moments, like the suspenseful duel between the gangsters and the police officers on the street or when Pacino's character is mocking a criminal who fell into the police trap by taking the bait, a woman.
Grade:++