Like Albert the informant, this movie "wasted my m------------g time" (Okay, not quite)

Rating: Null/10 (26 November 2001)

The praises bestowed on this film by critics and IMDb users and the pious references to the leads' "conversation over coffee" scene is a sign of the powerful grip that Robert De Niro and Al Pacino hold on the attention and minds of movie-goers, and the places in pop culture that they have grabbed a hold of. But after seeing all of those dreamy-eyed comment titles in the index for this movie, I just thought I'd bring to mind a few reasons why this film is by no means as good as they come.
**spoilers**
The cop-and-crook chase ending is a "cop-out" ~~ Yawn. A shootout is really just an arbitrary way to end the story. So McCauley got shot and killed. Whatever. What if Hanna had been the one to get hit? Instead of a moving scene that has a relevant connection to the plot as a whole, the viewer is given a trite shootout that only seems concerned with upholding the film tradition of "Good Guy outfights Bad Guy so the movie can end". It even features Hanna failing to call for backup on his cellular phone so Pacino can look even more heroic, and afterwards it shows De Niro slowly slumping to the ground as he expires. This does nothing dramatically.
Implausibility ~~ The writers seem to have been so preoccupied with conveying an "epic" sensation that they didn't polish up on the little (and not so little) details that detract from a movie if left unpolished. Some of them have already been discussed by other commenters. But "Heat" has plenty more to bother you.
So Van Zant has not only failed to rub out McCauley, but has received vengeful death threats from him over the phone, too. Does he grab his riches and some bodyguards and hide out somewhere? No, he just sits in his mansion (with no security system, apparently) all alone in his bathrobe and watches the hockey game on TV, almost waiting for McCauley to waltz in, kill him, and walk away unharmed.
Then we are supposed to believe that the cautious, carefully-planning McCauley would give up his chance to make a clean getaway just to extract some revenge from Waingrow, who has inexplicably gone from staying in cheap motels to renting luxury hotel suites. Let's ignore for a minute the fact that this public enemy could actually stroll into a big hotel, through the kitchens and laundry rooms, and through the lobby without being stopped and recognized, not even as an outsider in an employees-only area. He actually pulls the fire alarm for a distraction while he carries out his execution. Surely even he would have expected traffic jams, stampedes, firetrucks, and cops 'a plenty to arrive, making a quiet exit impossible.
Poor sense of scene ~~ The director is too caught up in extreme close-ups to let the viewer breath and get a feel for the settings. The result: claustrophobia and tedium. With all those big mugs filling up the screen, I would have been overwhelmed if I had seen this in the theater.
Histrionics ~~ I've accepted Pacino in some of his other films, but his raise-my-voice tough guy routine is tired here. It doesn't help that he has to shout moronic lines like "Women's ***!!!!" complete with hand gestures. Of course, this fits in with the absurdity of the dialogue overall. The film is another example of actors awkwardly reciting heavy, moralistic paragraphs, instead of characters behaving normally. We even get slow zoom-ins on the actors' faces so we can be told when the Important and Moving Drama is taking place. "You don't live with me, you live among the remnants of dead people. You sift through the detritus, you read the terrain, you search for signs of passing, for the scent of your prey ... and then you hunt them down." Um, I thought the filmmakers were aiming for "realism", not melodrama. And since when has anyone ever used the word "detritus" in a conversational sentence?
Add to all that a flat pseudo-classical/rock soundtrack and considerable length.and you wind up with a pretentious, unimpressive, undistinguished movie with a couple of big names on the poster.