Just Great

Rating: Null/10 (23 October 2011)

Trying not to be over the top I watched Heat last night for the first time in a while and when it finished with Al Pacino taking De Niro's dying hand and looking out into the shimmering airfield I was filling up.. the touching and euphoric music swells as Pacino's sad expression gazes out into the night...weird eh? A supposed crime tale of a crook and a cop both sublime in their daily jobs at the expense of family life should not make me feel all emotional at its climax. Heat though manages, in its sprawling run time, to bed in the characters and if you have the patience (as it is quite talky and has a lot of characters) you will be rewarded with a monumental shoot out on the streets of LA and a tense finale which like I said left me at least feeling melancholy.
I won't go into details about the story as it has a few plot lines that all come together but I must mention the style and the photography of the film. Some of the scenery and the locations are just stunning and beautiful and really set to mood and the focus on the loneliness of the De Niro and Pacino characters.
How can I do an opinion of this film without mentioning its star names? Al Pacino : Godfathers, Scarface, Serpico, Carlitos Way, Gigli (only kidding) and De Niro : Deer Hunter, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas ... the list could be much longer. Putting these two together in a film for the first time could have been a lazy poster line for a lazy film but Michael Mann provides an equally interesting and visually stunning story to equal their talents and the result is a feast for fans of their movies.
Its a really absorbing story with great actors, a great director and big thumbs up to everyone involved. I highly recommend it.