Al Pacheeso at his cheesiest

Rating: Null/10 (10 September 1999)

I used to like old Al, back when he knew how to act. But ever since the first two Godfather movies, in which he was brilliant, his abilities have rapidly diminished. Now he's just the same husky voiced screaming neanderthal in every film, whether it be Scarface (a very stylish yet justifiably criticized film), Sea of Love (A low tide leftover cop flick), Scent of a Woman (another silly cliched disaster) or this dragged out feature, which was actually just a remade version of Michael Mann's tv movie released 6 years earlier. I guess Mann felt that a few extra loud sound effects, weirder music, more gunfire, and of course Robert De Niro and Al Pacino having coffee together would somehow make it all work, sadly he was mistaken.
It takes some pretty lousy acting to make Scott Plank, the title character from LA Takedown (and Nick from Melrose Place and Wiley from Air America!)look like Laurence Olivier, but Pacino manages to pull it off. Val Kilmer is fairly talented and does a good job, as does Ashley Judd. Robert De Niro is a superb actor and no matter how crappy the film is, he and his abilities manage to emerge unscathed. It doesn't require a film school graduate to know that the ending to Heat is probably the most ridiculous and contrived since Lisa Blount's "Way to go Paula!!" cry in an officer and a gentleman, so hit the stop button about 15 minutes beforehand. If you have to watch a trashy bank robbery movie, try Point Break, it doesn't try to hide its silly plot and has much better action scenes.