Michael Mann's Heat represents the finest distillation of
the filmmaker's stylistic and narrative obsessions, and his ultimate
masterpiece as a storyteller. Mann, a
writer/director who has often reached greatness throughout his career, appears
to be most comfortable when telling stories about crime and its effects on the
various people that surround his multilayered stories. A reworking of Mann's earlier NBC movie of
the week, L.A. Takedown, Heat turns 20 years old this year, and looking back on
it, it's incredible how little it has aged, and even more remarkable to notice
how many other filmmakers have been lifting Mann's striking visual aesthetic
since the film's initial release.
Critics took Heat a bit for granted when they first encountered it, as response
was mostly positive and respectful, though not overly effusive, and while a
solid success at the box office, it didn't do massive numbers. However, over the years, audiences have
turned the film into a cultural touchstone, as it represents the type of film
that rarely gets made anymore: The introspective Hollywood drama with smarts
and action that features big stars and a name director working at the top of
their games. The work that Mann had done
preceding Heat clearly influenced his decisions on his magnum crime opus, and
the films he'd go on to make in the future have all been fairly (or unfairly)
compared to this epic 1995 crime saga.
Mann has found his obvious home in the crime genre, with his
name associated on TV projects (Starsky & Hutch, Police Story, Police
Woman, Miami Vice, Crime Story, and the wildly underrated Robbery Homicide
Division) and on various feature films (Collateral, Miami Vice, Public Enemies,
and Blackhat), all of which hum with a distinct personality and unified vision,
no matter in what capacity Mann served. Part
of what differentiates Mann from other filmmakers is his unique sense of place
and dedication to realism; no matter how busy the narrative and how jargon
fueled the dialogue may be, there’s always a clear sense of how every detail
might fall into place, allowing the audience to follow the rigors of the plot
while still having the capacity to be surprised. And in Heat, there’s a level
of clarity to the story that might have been unattainable by another, less in control
filmmaker, considering just how many moving pieces are involved in making Heat
the success that it became. What I love so much about Heat is that, like James
Mangold’s 1997 policier Cop Land, the film operates as a sly, contemporary
Western, but Heat, unlike many other genre efforts, transcends the themes that
it so dutifully explores, vaulting the picture into rarefied, existential
territory that Mann always seems interested in exploring no matter the milieu. He
also managed to craft the Ultimate Los Angeles Movie, but more on that later.
Not that a plot explanation should be necessary, but I’ll
break down the basics. Robert De Niro is
a master thief. Al Pacino is a master
cop. They both have dedicated crews that
will follow them anywhere. The city of
Los Angeles is their deadly playground.
The film revolves around the notion of duality, and how the De Niro and
Pacino characters are essentially the same person, just on opposite sides of
the law, completely consumed by their work, with a constant sense of
professionalism and integrity guiding them through their perilous daily
life. De Niro assembles his team to do a
major score, the daring robbery of a bank, and it’s up to Pacino and his band
of fellow officers to bring them down.
Mixed into the main story are the various relationships that De Niro,
Pacino, and their men have with the women in their lives: Wives, girlfriends,
and in one instance, a step-daughter.
Instead of just a nuts and bolts crime film, Mann opened up his generous
narrative to include real conversations between real people that drive all of
the action in a grounded, thoughtful manner.
How it all ends is the stuff of cinema legend, and if you don’t know by
now I’ll allow you to discover for yourself, but I will concede that Heat
operates on multiple narrative tracks all at once, with side-jobs bringing
along potentially fatal consequences for De Niro and his men, and the
emotionally taxing rigors of having to balance your family life and your cop
life for Pacino.
De Niro’s Neil McCauley is a criminal driven to
perfection. He lives by a code: Never
become attached to something that you can’t walk out on in 30 seconds if you
spot the heat around the corner. No
wife, no family, a true lone wolf in a sharp grey suit (a costume obsession of
Mann’s for years), McCauley is the kind of man who thinks he has everything
under control. Then, things change when
he meets a woman who might be a reason to leave his dangerous life behind
for. She gives him a new reason to live,
or at least he thinks she does from time to time, because the way that De Niro
brilliantly plays the character, all inward quiet and small glances to suggest
intent and feeling, you never truly know what he’ll do at any given
moment. We know he’s pulled off vaious high-stakes
jobs with total ease and precision, but he’s not used to letting his emotional
guard down, and then when coupled with the fact that he’s got a Super Cop
looking for him, he understands the need to take decisive action in an effort
to complete his goals. This is one of De
Niro’s least flashy and totally reserved performances, bringing a masculine
grace to the role of leader and friend to his teammates, and while clearly a
man capable of more than just violent action and air-tight planning, he’s still
a human being, capable of making emotionally misguided mistakes which could
prove to be his undoing.
In Pacino’s Vincent Hanna, Mann has created an amazing
dichotomy between the MacCauley character, because while both men certainly
share similar traits and attributes, the recklessness of the Hanna character is
what allows him to constantly move throughout the night, always trying to one
up his stealth opponent. Pacino brings a
live-wire spark to the role of this driven detective, hollering out orders at
his underlings, busting down doors, always ready to mix it up with an
opponent. While listening to the Blu-ray
audio commentary with Mann, it’s revealed that he had written a casually under control
cocaine habit into the Hanna character, which would help explain the sudden
outbursts of energy and profanity, as well as all of the jaw chomping that he
exhibits all throughout the film. I’m ot
fully sure why this angle was cut out of the film (I guess it cuts down on the
sympathy factor for the character), but I really do wish that Mann had kept
this edgy bit of business in the final cut, as it would have further
contextualized Hanna as a man of steady habits and unpredictable behavior. Pacino, no stranger to large emoting,
especially during the 90’s in films such as Scent of a Woman and The Devil’s
Advocate, chews the scenery when called for, but also allows small moments of
stern quiet to seep in around the edges. He’s a man who is always assessing the
situation, whether on the job or at home, and it’s the way that Pacino burrows
deep into Hanna as a man that we come to understand the method to his
madness. I also find it curious how Mann
introduces his top-cop character at the start of the film, during a morning
lovemaking session with his wife, as opposed to on the streets chasing down
some bad guy. Romance is another aspect that Mann's films always deal with, and
the way that Pacino balances his home life and professional life is of key
consequence to his character and the story in general.
The romantic angle and the film’s concentration on the
female characters also help separate Heat from lesser genre entries. Not
content to tell an all-boys story with guns and explosions, Mann, as he’s been
prone to do in the past, allows for the leads to have personal relationships
which amp up the narrative tension and reason for being. McCauley meets an enchanting young woman who
he feels might be worth running away with (a super young Amy Brenneman), and it
isn’t until the film’s final moments where you learn his ultimate decisions
regarding their unique relationship.
This relationship takes the normally rigorously disciplined McCauley out
of his comfort zone, which allows for shards of humanity to creep in around the
edges. Hanna, meanwhile, is a two time
divorcee who is in the middle of an about to fail marriage (Diane Venora is his
sharp witted wife); it’s clear that he can’t keep things on the up and up at
home while still traversing the streets of Los Angeles looking for all of the
city’s transgressors. The scenes between
Pacino and Venora have a palpable tension, because while they clearly loved
each other once, they are so obviously drifting away from each other, and their
confrontations carry a verbal weight and sting that elevates the material from
mere soap opera to fully fleshed-out human dramatics. To further complicate Hanna’s life, his
mentally unstable stepdaughter (played by a then emerging star Nathalie
Portman) also looms over the proceedings, creating a sense of unease that
becomes essential to one aspect of the script.
In retrospect, Heat does sort of resemble a male soap opera of sorts, as
the two lead characters are emotionally stunted and need to sort out their
issues through a variety of ways, some involving words, and others involving action.
Heat has action peppered all throughout the runtime, but the
film’s opening set-piece, involving the robbery of an armored truck, and
unfortunate execution of the truck’s owners, immediately grabs the viewer by
the throat, never letting you up for air.
De Niro and his team orchestrate the perfect smash and grab, stealing
only what they need, and leaving hardly a trace of evidence. But the scene that everyone loves to discuss
and re-watch is arguably the greatest single sequence of action ever put on
film, the robbery of a downtown Los Angeles bank in broad daylight. This bravura sequence is nothing short of
staggering, with very few (if any) other films capturing the same sense of
immediacy and violent impact throughout the years, no matter how hard they try,
Mann included (the gun battles in Public Enemies, Miami Vice, and Blackhat are
terrific and at times extraordinary, but none match the rawness of what was
captured in Heat). While never overly
bloody, the street rampage is filled with all sorts of deadly implications,
from numerous police officers and innocent bystanders being killed in the
crossfire, and various members of De Niro’s crew either getting hurt or
killed. Thousands of rounds of
ammunition were expended during this blistering sequence of sustained fury,
with the sensational sound team capturing every single bullet strike and muzzle
blast. Mann saves the bloodiest bits of
violence for the moments that really count (Waingro, Van Sandt, the climatic
moments between McCauley and Hanna), so that when we see someone go down hard
and viciously, we feel it all the more rather than everything being a senseless
blur of unending graphic violence. As a
filmmaker, Mann knows more about what to show and when to show it than few
other currently working directors.
The cinematography, editing, music, and production design
are all in total harmonious synch in Heat.
Dante Spinotti's naturalistic if at times slightly heightened images, in
full 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, fill the edges of the frame with visual
information and precise detail, with Mann's
"always-looking-into-the-future-of-the-night" style mixing with
Spinotti's elegant use of color and depth of field. Shots are framed a tad off center, with the
character’s heads filling the foreground or background or side of frame, almost
so that the camera is entering the minds of the story’s inhabitants, creating a
lyrical and thought provoking tone that suggests a cerebral nature as much as
it does anything else. The physical
locations chosen for Heat showcase Los Angeles in all of its ethnically diverse
and cement-sexy splendor, with the vapors of street lamps bouncing off the flat
street surfaces, as industrial landscapes dot the horizon, with parking
garages, empty lots and fields, side-streets, and the vast expanses of the
city's various skyscrapers and office buildings suggesting endless
possibilities. And then there’s the
amazing music, which ranges from ambient to grand, sweeping to soft, always in
perfect tandem with the bright daytime and dark nocturnal images on screen,
with some Miami Vice-inspired guitar riffs for those paying close attention. Heat
is a nearly three hour picture, but because of the crispness and the
judiciously timed editing, the film never sags or allows itself to slow down;
once the story kicks into gear it never lets up, with a final hour that packs
various dramatic conflict and incident into the narrative yet never feels
rushed or forced. The swift pace created by the seamless editing patterns goes
a long way in keeping this lengthy but forceful film moving along, with Mann
pulling all the elements together in a way that few could ever have when it
comes to material such as this.
At
the end of it, Heat is a film that is consumed with the professionalism and the
costs of committing 100% to any area of life, but in this story, that area of
life is the criminal vs. the cop. And during the film’s electric final moments
of action at a busy LAX and in the galvanizing final scene accompanied by
Moby’s epic and poetic song God Moving Over The Face of The Waters, you get the
sense that Mann has crafted two characters that, while resting on opposite
sides of the law, have come to mutually respect each other as men and as
adversaries. It all goes back to their
fantastic meeting at the coffee shop at the film’s midsection, and how the two
of them look clear into each other eyes and tell one another that the life
they’re living is the only life they know how to live. More than any other great piece of work from
Mann, Heat is his definitive masterpiece of filmmaking, the A-1 end result of
all of his ticks and tendencies as a storyteller, filtered through that indelible
and totally dynamic visual aesthetic that has subtly morphed over the years
while still retaining its core elements.
It’s a film that I remain blown away by every single time I take in a
viewing, and I love how I can vividly recall the first time I experienced it on
the big screen with my father back in my high school days; I had a second
opportunity to see the film on the big screen with Mann doing live Q&A (he
took a break from editing duties on Ali to run over to LACMA for the
screening). Heat will always be one of
my favorite films of all time, for so many reasons, not the least of which, is
that, simply put, it is great, enduring cinema that stirs the soul.
