If there's a passionate genius on both sides of the law, the world turns out to be too small.

Rating: 10/10 (1 February 2005)

Every now and then there's a movie that never fails you. Heat is one of them. There's the opposition between two extremes, always returning in another shape, another metaphor. Cop vs bad guy, coolness vs heat, distance vs connection... This tension never ceases to get you out of your chair, into the story. Michael Mann always puts his main characters always at the opposite end of a long distance, and yet you feel there is close interaction. In Heat, Pacino and DeNiro meet twice, but the are talking to each other from the beginning till the end. One can't help getting between them while watching the movie.
The other half of the story is the action. No mind blowing huge explosions or endless high speed chases, but real action. This movie gives you an impression about how simple and complicated real "jobs" can be. It just happens and you feel like your walking in that very same street, watching the whole thing while it happens in front of your eyes.
That is the greatness of this movie. It feels real, both the action and the complex characters. It is not the regular good-guy-nails-bad-guy-flick. Both sides are figuring out the antagonist's next move and the spectator is caught in the atmosphere of mixed feelings: respect for the other side, both cop and gangster admire each other, but there both hardliners. No time for emotion, and yet there's a continuously glowing heat in their interaction, something that's reflected in their personal lives, the way they handle their private life.
This movie is black and white in real life color.
Well, it may be a matter of personal taste, but this is one of the best crime saga's ever shown on the big screen...