Clear your schedule if you want to see "Heat." Clocking in at 174 minutes, it's a movie of epic proportions. It would have done better to aspire to be a good cops and robbers flick -- or simply to cut its length in half.
If the thought of a movie striving to be The Crime Epic of the Century, and featuring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro together on screen for the first time is making you drool expect to be let down -- Pacino and DeNiro only share one real scene together, and a pretty sedate one at that.
The plot pits Al Pacino as Detective Vincent Hanna in an attempt to catch a band of master thieves led by Robert DeNiro as Neil McCauley, while everyone tries to deal with their home lives. In addition to the two main headliners, "Heat" also stars Val Kilmer and seven other stars.
"Heat" is directed by Michael Mann, who last brought us "The Last of the Mohicans." Mann is perhaps best known for his work on the 1980's television show Miami Vice.
While his fascination with cops and robbers remains, gone is the synth pop hip fashion poseur slop. "Heat" is a gritty, real life movie, but if it seems a little like television, that's because it is. It is a remake of "L.A. Takedown," a television movie Mann directed in 1989.
Like many television movie directors, Mann can't be accused of having too much talent. Faced with the legendary first pairing of Pacino and DeNiro, it's understandable how Mann overzealously bit off more than he could chew. He insists on attempting to develop the lives of every character in the movie.
In the beginning, this serves to build suspense and increase the moody nature of some scenes. But as a whole it just serves to make the movie unnecessarily long and takes away the power shot-length has in the scenes which really justify it.
To his credit, Mann is really good at action scenes. The armored truck robbery in the beginning will leave you breathless and the bank robbery shootout will probably go down in movie history. In addition, most of the shots are well composed, containing many highly memorable images.
"Heat" lacks unique insight, relying instead on movie cliches (cops have no lives, robbers will make mistakes which will prove their downfall), but it does supply some interesting plot twists which will keep the audience interested.
Ultimately, "Heat" is a good movie. It has a phenomenal cast, and is visually interesting. In the hands of a better director it would have been great.
