Heat (1995)
Directed by Michael Mann
Obsessive master thief Neil McCauley leads a top-notch crew on various daring heists throughout Los Angeles while determined detective Vincent Hanna pursues him without rest. Each man recognizes and respects the ability and the dedication of the other even though they are aware their cat-and-mouse game may end in violence.
16 connections found
View:
16 films that influenced Heat
What critics say influenced Heat
There's a non-L.A. movie that seems an obvious influence here: Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch."
Its point of view about the innate violence of men is essentially that of Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch," but while the idea itself remains valid and even relevant, Mann cancels all that out with a ridiculous ending that suggests some sort of final spiritual, metaphysical mind-meld.
'HEAT' IS AN ODD THOUGH OFTEN ENTERtaining blend of "The Asphalt Jungle" and "Oprah," a traditional cops-and-robbers story weirdly fitted out with long, earnest discussions of interpersonal relationships.
In its broadest outlines, "Heat" is an ironic/tragic heist movie in the tradition of John Huston's "The Asphalt Jungle," in which character determines everything.
The notion of criminals as lonely, existential warriors is of course not new (Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Samourai," starring Alain Delon, did it especially well), but it's rarely done with as much dexterity and panache as Mann and company have provided.
And while we’re at it, “Heat” borrows heavily from Woo’s “The Killer”, which is also about a cop and a criminal who bond together.
Advertisement
It's also a pity that after so much brilliance Mann should succumb to a derivative ending - an airport chase, à la The Killing and Bullitt, and a tidy if bloody resolution in which the wrong man gets killed.
And he uses the rest of the cast that way, too -- including Voight as the ravaged-looking Nate and Bud Cort (of "Harold and Maude") as a smarmy restaurant manager.
From "Thief" and "Manhunter" to TV's "Miami Vice" and "Crime Story," Mann always gets a special look to his thrillers, a drop-dead veneer, a mechanical gleam.
"Heat," from the Michael Mann who created "Miami Vice" and "Police Story," as well as "Thief," "Manhunter" and "Last of the Mohicans," is exactly what you might expect, only a lot better: A big, fat, full-tilt boogie, rockin', rollin' heavy metal concert for outlaws, outlaw wannabes, macho sentimentalists and gun cranks -- everyone who's ever felt a dribble of testosterone in his or her endocrine system.
As written and directed by Michael Mann (Thief, Manhunter, The Insider), Heat is the apotheosis of a career-long interest in obsessive professionalism (seen in heroic and anti-heroic efficiency experts) and the tension between unruly law and criminal disorder.
Heat is undoubtedly better than its forbear in nearly every possible way, for the simple reason that Mann was making the story the way he'd wanted to in the first place, and doing so with a level of care never previously seen in his films, though Mohicans and Thief especially were awfully controlled and careful movies.
Though Mann is best known for directing "The Last of the Mohicans" and executive producing TV's "Miami Vice," moviegoers with a fondness for crime stories will remember "Thief," his polished 1981 feature debut starring James Caan as a master safecracker and Tuesday Weld as the woman in his life.
You know you will get high style and hard-bitten romanticism from the man who made "Thief" and "The Last of the Mohicans," and TV's "Miami Vice" and "Crime Stow."
At this moment, he had as much clout as ever in his career: more than during Miami Vice , more than after The Jericho Mile turned him into the hot young director to watch.
Now, in Heat, writer/director Michael Mann (The Last of the Mohicans) has contrived a cinematic intersection in their careers ("contrived" being the operative word), and the result is, unfortunately, a colossal disappointment.
Writer-director Michael Mann, the creator of "Miami Vice" and director of "Manhunter" and "The Last of the Mohicans," is a masterly image-maker.
You know you will get high style and hard-bitten romanticism from the man who made "Thief" and "The Last of the Mohicans," and TV's "Miami Vice" and "Crime Stow."
By casting two of Hollywood's best actors in the starring roles, writer-director Michael Mann ("Manhunter," "Thief," "The Last of the Mohicans") almost pulls it off.
But writer-director Michael Mann’s magnum opus — the middle child among his ’90s masterpieces between “The Last of the Mohicans” and “The Insider” — is anything but simple … and stunningly so.
Having worked with Mann several times since ’86 (“The Last of the Mohicans,” “Heat,” “The Insider”), the vet cinematographer recounts his challenges working for a new director and explains many of his shot selections, night filming and the minimalist prison cell set.
Still, you don't watch this and think of it as an unusually good Miami Vice episode (unlike, say, Mann's Heat, which seemed like an unusually long Miami Vice episode); it has its own heartbeat.
From "Thief" and "Manhunter" to TV's "Miami Vice" and "Crime Story," Mann always gets a special look to his thrillers, a drop-dead veneer, a mechanical gleam.
"Heat," from the Michael Mann who created "Miami Vice" and "Police Story," as well as "Thief," "Manhunter" and "Last of the Mohicans," is exactly what you might expect, only a lot better: A big, fat, full-tilt boogie, rockin', rollin' heavy metal concert for outlaws, outlaw wannabes, macho sentimentalists and gun cranks -- everyone who's ever felt a dribble of testosterone in his or her endocrine system.
The former executive producer and sometime director of TV's "Miami Vice"as well as creator of such films as "Manhunter" and "The Last of the Mohicans"Mann makes full use of the filmmaker's arsenal, seducing his audience with the contrast between the hot sensuality of his editing rhythms and the chilly spareness of his compositions.
Each of the three feature films he produced in the last 10 years -- Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, and now Heat -- has exhibited his consistently sharp eye for environment and attention to the character of the besieged male hero.
Just when it seemed that the only hope for crime movies lay in the postmodernist artifice of films like "Pulp Fiction," Mann reinvests the genre with brooding, modernist conviction.
Advertisement
We've seen it in "In the Line of Fire" (Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich), "Cliffhanger" (Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow) and others.
We've seen it in "In the Line of Fire" (Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich), "Cliffhanger" (Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow) and others.