One of the more necessary American crime films from recent years, as character as well as genre are given harsh redressings.

Rating: 7/10 (25 January 2010)

The sorts of characters, and it is mostly low-lives, that inhabit Michael Mann's 1995 crime film opus are serial killers; thieves; ex-cons and gamblers, even those who aren't immediately applicable to those particular tags carry their own traits and flaws, one that'll see them get into hot water at some point in the piece. But to tell someone the film is possessed by these sorts of characters, however true it might be, would still be somewhat misleading as this is not the freak show of circus side-acts and dumbed down criminal caricatures one might initially think. Mann's film deals with some raw content from both sides of the law, content born out of various individuals' relationships with wives, partners and children; content born out of why it is what they do and how it can have as much-an affect on their private lives as it does their own lives.
I read that it took Mann years to get the film made, doing what was perceived as a 'dumbed down' version via 1989's L.A. Takedown in the mean time. This was before Scorsese's Goodfellas arrived in 1990, a film that took the villain of the American crime film genre and fleshed him out to the point of skeletal in his being stripped bare, in doing so spawning a number of American crime films which enjoyed, within reason, deconstructing what were otherwise hard-bodied, villainous archetypes within a genre and getting under their skin in what they do, how they speak and how they operate. Nowadays people come away from such films remembering, indeed either relating to or liking more, the crime-infused villain more than anyone else, particularly if there is a 'just' co-lead. De Niro's character here joins a long list that sees mostly everyone from Liotta's Goodfellas character; to Jackon's in either Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown; to one of the two kidnappers in 1996's Fargo; right the way through to 2008 and Ledger's recent turn in The Dark Knight.
But that isn't to say crime or a criminal lifestyle is glamorised in anyway, particularly in Heat. There is a beautifully observed sub-plot, nothing more than a mere diversion which has about five total minutes of screen time, utilising a character who has just got out of prison and is beginning a crummy job at a burger joint cleaning toilets and mopping floors. Later, they are given a proposition which will lure them back into the world of crime and violence. The point here, in this brief span of sub-narrative, being that everyday work is long and arduous, while you have an initial choice in which career you take - but a life of crime, no matter how appealing or alluring, will take its toll on your life. Although the use of an African-American to enforce this point in the film may have garnered some criticism in the past.
The film centres around a 'crew' of thieves, in which the leader is seemingly Robert De Niro's Neil McCauley, as enforced when they stand around following the realisation that the police are onto them and each of them seem to look to McCauley for guidance: a blurry eyed Michael Cheritto (Sizemore) somewhat weakly exclaiming "Whatever. I'm with you." to McCauley when faced with a predicament that will either change his life or end it. The others are a gambling junkie named Chris Shiherlis (Kilmer) and a Mexican named Trejo, played by Danny Trejo. On the flip-side of the coin, Al Pacino's Vincent Hanna, a serial crew foiler, attempts to rid Los Angeles of McCauley's crew in taking them down. This is perhaps where the inspiration for the title of the 1989 version of the film derives; harking back to my earlier point, the title of this film: "Heat" derives more from the criminally minded of the two sides, in particular McCauley's ideology of walking out on anything and everything if you smell the police (heat) closing in.
This shifting of the title of the film from 'Takedown' (Police standpoint/goal) to 'Heat' (Criminal standpoint/ideology) only emphasises the post-Goodfellas idea of bringing everything round so that there's more of a weight on the fact the 'bad guys' are, at the end of the day, human as well. The film is polished, its mostly night-set cinematography decked out in navy blue, but its idea of a life in crime is quite ugly. The stark, harsh font used in the opening credits is metallic and uneasy on the eye; thus juxtaposing the 'look' of the film. It is a film that'll see the thief interact with a women in a loving manner, whilst at a book shop of all places, in a sequence that is soft and melancholy in its construction, before sleeping with her; but then cut to the police badgering and bullying a scrapyard employee. In another piece of work, the scenes would've stuck but the roles might've been reversed to enforce the inhumane and hard-bodied nature of the gangster and the good-hearted, kind, loving and melancholy nature of the chief cop.
Heat essentially sees two individuals at the peak of their game go against one another, with whatever they have in the form of backup tailing them around. The fates of those on either side range from potential injury during full blown, breath-taking shoot outs with automatic weaponry in the streets of the city to more smaller things, such as a member of a SWAT team accidentally bumping into the side of a truck trailer, thus alerting the thieves to their presence. It's a film about crime, violence and procedure; but it is additionally concerned with genre archetypes as human beings, those whom feel; dream; realise flaws and balance marital issues. As far as attention to the intricacies of both character and plot go, as well as a number of other film-making conventions, Heat is a really creditable effort.