Heat (1995)
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.
THE SUMMARY: An LAPD detective pursues a career criminal across Los Angeles, trying to outsmart and outgun him into capture or death, with plenty of downtime for the mediocre wife and girlfriend of each of them. Intense action and a boring, dysfunctional home life is apparently supposed to be some sort of profound philosophical statement. To me, it just turns a decent action movie into a way-too-long snooze-fest.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER FULLSEMI1776: Another classic masterpiece from the 90s and a fantastic gun movie to boot. It also shows Robert De Niro before he caught the SJW virus and TDS.
THE BEST:
Memorable action scenes: The opening armored truck ambush, the bank heist, the closing chase between Hanna and McCauley - they were all memorable scenes worthy of praise. The tension and clever shadow work in the final airport scene I thought was especially interesting. They weren’t perfect - the LAPD has aim arguably worse than Vader’s stormtroopers - but they were well-shot, tense, and entertaining to watch.
The armored truck robbery
The bank heist
The ending airport fight
I can respect the influence: Even if I don’t personally love a movie, it’s cool to see its influence on future work, and I have to acknowledge the way it inspired one of my favorite video game series of all time, Grand Theft Auto. The armored truck scene was re-created in GTA V. The bank heist scene was re-created in GTA IV. In fact, Heat was a major influence on the series overall.
Heat was also hugely influential on The Dark Knight, a movie I love and had actually seen, even before this weekly movie review bit. Director Christopher Nolan wanted Gotham presented as beautifully and dramatically as he thought Michael Mann did for Los Angeles, and so he had each of his department heads watch Heat to take notes for The Dark Knight. Said Nolan about Heat, “I always felt Heat to be a remarkable demonstration of how you can create a vast universe within one city and balance a very large number of characters and their emotional journeys in an effective manner.”
GTA V’s armored truck attack
THE WORST:
I really don’t care about Batman or the Joker’s home life: I gather a theme of the movie is to illustrate the similarities between the cop and the robber. The both prioritize career, so both of their home lives suffer for it, and presumably we’re supposed to observe how a failure to prioritize family causes suffering no matter what your day job is. That’s a worthy point for organizing your life, but it’s not a point that makes an entertaining movie.
I don’t care about the suicidal step-daughter of the hero. I don’t care about the 4-of-a-girlfriend the crook is banging. Seriously - the guy bags millions and a graphic artist cat lady is his catch? At least she’s better than the cop’s wife - she looks like a tranny and bangs another dude anyway.
If I can say anything for the home life and romance drama of the movie, at least it created Al Pacino’s ‘great ass!’ scene. I say it was top-tier cringe and a low point of the movie, but it can also be credited for its meme production.
The family-life storylines contribute very little plot-wise, and just dilute what is an otherwise interesting crime thriller.
She got a great ass!
The movie’s ‘good and evil’ theme isn’t actually very meaningful: Heat’s broad theme is to explore the nature of ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and to consider them as relative concepts. We’re supposed to question who the ‘good guy’ and the ‘bad guy’ actually are. In the end, are you hoping for Pacino to catch De Niro, or for De Niro to escape? Or maybe both, somehow?
That’s the movie’s point - we’re supposed to find merits and flaws in both men, and see them as more similar than different. Sure, Hanna is a lawman, but he’s a cocaine addict on his third marriage and can’t achieve stability or satisfaction outside of his job. Sure, McCauley is a criminal, but he tries to keep his friend’s marriage together, among other good deeds. The coffee date and the handshake death establish a mutual respect between these men, and similarities between the two supposed enemies.
But do these similarities matter? I don’t actually find their differences relative at all. One guy steals and kills in cold blood. The other just has a crappy home life. De Niro is charismatic, yes, but charisma doesn’t create some profound moral dilemma, so I’m not that impressed or thought-provoked by this theme. Evil dude is still evil. The good dude is just a crappy hero with a coke-addiction and a poorly aging slutty wife.
THE RATING: 3/5 Wickies. Moments of excellence too distantly separated by lesser monotony. Way too long without good reason.
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NEXT WEEK: V for Vendetta (2005)
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