It has some drawbacks that wouldn't make me recommend this for family viewing - tons of f- words by Al Pacino and a few bloody scenes, but as far as a fascinating crime story: wow! This movie made modern-day history because it was the first time two of the great actors of this generation - Pacino and Robert De Niro - finally acted together in the same film. I really believe this is one the great crime movies of all time. One of my five favorite films of all time, Heat is a cinematic banquet of intense imagery and pulse-pounding action.
HEAT 1995 FULL MOVIE SUBTITLES SERIES
That's what Heat is really: a series of brief moments, some touching, others traumatic, and still others incredibly horrifying in the feelings that they inspire in the romantic who, like me sees not black or white portrayals of protagonist and villain, but a montage of grays that combine to create a vivid spectrum of film characterization that could not be found in hundreds of films combined.
Who doesn't feel for this guy - this minor character in a film with big-time heavyweights who gets to shine for a few brief moments. But there is a catharsis that I felt for that same ex-con when De Niro's character presents him with the opportunity to take just one more score, for old time's sake. I am thinking of the interaction between the ex-con who finds conditional employment in a diner with an opportunistic scum of a boss, and whose girlfriend is so proud of him for swallowing his pride and not simply giving the sonofabitch a good pummeling. While I have heard others (who I am ashamed at times to call close friends) say that Heat drags in places, I will concede that there are moments in the film that require more than the cursory attention that they give to the movie they happen to be watching at any given time (I'm sorry not every director is Jerry Bruckheimer), there are poignant developments of character in Heat that many would casually disregard. The dialogue in this scene (at the very end of the first tape, if you own the VHS version) sets up the last half of the film beautifully, as our two rivals come to the joint realization that they have no hand in choosing the paths that will lead them to their ultimate confrontation: their very natures so define their respective actions that any attempt to do otherwise would simply be a waste of time. A fact which he discusses with his archnemesis (De Niro) in what history will regard as one of the most frenetic scenes in the history of film. Take Pacino as good cop Vincent Hanna: one of the most intense characterizations of the tragic hero that I have ever witnessed, as he laments the demise of his third marriage to a pill-junkie wife. To break this three-hour gem of a film down to its core, this is a film about men - strong men - and the supporting role that he women of the film have on them for better or worse. Sound like a bold statement? Devotees of classic cops and robbers flicks of old will no doubt take exception, but I believe that Michael Mann achieved some measure of perfection with Heat. And that Moby song at the end(God moving over the face of waters) gets me every time. And Natalie Portman, for chrissake! Try getting that cast again. Perhaps Mann is telling us were all the same.Except in what we do.Every speaking part holds substance in this movie, and the support cast is astonishing when you actually read the caliber of who appeared in this film.Tom Sizmore, Val Kilmer,Ashley Judd,Ted Levine,Wes Studi,Hank Azaria,William Fitchner,Henry Rollins,Dennis Haysbert,Tom Noonan. The cops are similar to the robbers and vice-versa. This is an extended family where you feel you know all of them without knowing anything at all. We know these men now.We know neither will stop at what they do.And yet there is no way either would stop the other.Unless they had too. Pacino doing ice cool calm? De Niro the manic outbursts,arms flailing? It wouldn't work.
We all know De Niro and Pacino could have been either main part,but can you imagine it any other way round. What games did you play as a young kid? Cops and robbers.Good guy.Bad guy. It's his most kinetic,vibrant(for a film mostly shot in steely blue),agonising,stirring,brash,violent and brilliance in such a simple story. You know that feeling of having seen it about 3 or 4 times in the last 12 months is not enough? That's what I feel at the moment. Subtitle Heat.x264.įor some reason I cannot stop thinking about this film lately.