Where There Is Heat There Is Always Fire.

Rating: Null/10 (29 November 2003)

I started writing movie reviews for this site nearly four years ago. During that time I have written information about over 1,200 movies. Constantly I get messages, good and bad, about my reviews. Sometimes individuals point out errors I have made in terms of something I mis-wrote and I go back and correct those mistakes. Others demand changes to be made in my criticisms and those requests always fall on deaf ears. I wrote a review for "Heat" back in the summer of 2000 and gave it 4 stars out of 5. I liked the movie, but looking back my review was not entirely correct. Surprisingly not one person has ever written to me about my review of this picture (no praise and no criticism). What I want to write today is something that has been bothering me for quite some time when it comes to this movie. I did not reward "Heat" with as much praise, respect and fondness that I should have. Honestly I think I was not the movie-reviewer I was in 2000 that I am now. I feel I have grown up to an extent and that I must correct the mistake I made in regard to this picture. "Heat" is one of the most brilliant, captivating, sophisticated, intelligent, honest, emotional and powerfully-moving experiences I have ever had when it comes to the cinema. In modern day Los Angeles a career criminal (Robert DeNiro) and his gang (which includes Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore and Danny Trejo) go around the city and create destruction and chaos early on by robbing an armored car. Immediately police detective Al Pacino and fellow cops Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi and Ted Levine (among others) get involved in the case. Quickly it is very clear that the thieves are skilled, skilled beyond anything Pacino has ever seen before. Soon a bank heist of more than $10 million is hatched by DeNiro and his gang with help from others like Tom Noonan, William Fichtner and Jon Voight. DeNiro and company though are struggling outside of their work. Kilmer's gambling problem over-shadows his illegal work and wife Ashley Judd turns away from a marriage that is being ruined because of his terrible addiction. DeNiro meanwhile suffers from loneliness and isolation. He has been dealt a poor hand in life, but amazingly he finds love with librarian Amy Brenneman ("Judging Amy" fame). On the good side of the law Pacino is on his third marriage. This time he is with pot-smoking wife Diane Venora. Pacino's obsession with his work has created an island between himself and his wife and his private life is a jumbled mess because of it. Adolescent step-daughter Natalie Portman suffers herself from an unstable home-life (her real father is nowhere to be found) and begins to question why nothing is going the way she would like. A very fine invisible line is drawn to show the similarities and contrasts in the lives of Pacino and DeNiro. Their personal lives are wrecks for the most part, but when they are doing what they were born to do (policing for Pacino and thieving for DeNiro) they are much like mythical gods. Many characters come and go throughout the course of the picture and a few side-stories take place, but in the end "Heat" is about one of the best relationships I have ever seen in a motion picture. It is a brotherhood-styled relationship between Pacino and DeNiro that is mysterious, complex, legendary and definitely thought-provoking. The picture runs right at 180 minutes and the two all-world performers share only about seven or eight minutes of screen-time, but their time together are some of the very best moments I have ever been lucky enough to experience in motion pictures. About half-way through the film the two meet for coffee in a busy cafe. To a stranger in the restaurant they could be friends or even brothers. What no one except the audience knows is that the two are mortal enemies because of their God-given skills. They do not yell, they do not fight, they do not ever raise their voices. Instead they chat and they get to know each other, they realize that the other is suffering outside of his work and they both learn to humanize one another. They share backgrounds (which they both basically know about each other anyway) and then they share dreams and fears. It is very clear that the duo hate their lives and make up for that empty feeling they both have by immersing themselves in their work. You hope they will actually come away friends from this conversation, but sometimes that just cannot be. Men like these two cannot change. They both act like they cannot stand the heat in their lives but in actuality they must have it in order to survive and function. Pacino and DeNiro admit that under different circumstances they likely could have been friends, but in their topsy-turvy existences that just cannot be. Maybe they won't ever see each other again, but then again maybe they will. Whether they see one another again is not really the point. The point is who you are and what you do ultimately dictates your life. These two are knights in a chess match of words, strategy, territory and ultimately emotional connections. Pacino is a great cop because he can think like a criminal and DeNiro is a great criminal because he has the intelligence to see things like a cop would see them. "Heat" is all about the roll of the dice in each person's life. Under many circumstances Pacino and DeNiro would be brothers, men who would stand beside one another and fight for the other until the bitter end. However the roll of dice here has come up snake eyes. Both have hardships and both have emotional scars that are literally tearing them up inside, but they do not let that get them down to the point where they cannot do their jobs. Instead they do what they were meant to do and do those jobs to the very best of their ability. The only question is how will these two experts do when they possibly meet again and which will make the potentially fatal mistake that will change the entire landscape of the film. "Heat" is a film that I really did not get as well as I should have when I first saw it, but as time passes I see the unquestioned brilliance this picture possesses. Really the whole movie becomes a microcosm when Dennis Haysbert (of "24" fame) comes into the picture for the first time. Many have wondered what the point of his character is. The point of Haysbert's character is that you are what you are and you cannot always change that. He has been recently released from prison, but assigned a terrible job as a cook at a small restaurant with a sadistic and cold boss (the uncredited Bud Cort). He wants to do right and make it in life honestly, but it is clear that just cannot be the way it is. An opportunity to work with DeNiro leads to a situation that may be predictable, but is also chillingly dramatic and highly nerve-racking. Writer/director Michael Mann had supposedly been working on "Heat" as a television movie back in the late-1980s. His work on the very impressive television show giant "Miami Vice" had endeared him to many in Hollywood. However "Heat" was stuck in limbo because honestly no one really knew what to make of Mann's vision. The big screen is the only place this would have worked well. In my earlier review I stated that "Heat" could have been the film of the decade. Looking back I am not sure that this was not the finest picture of the 1990s. Everything is perfect here. Dante Spinotti's cinematography gives Los Angeles a glossy and slick look throughout. The City of Angels has never looked better on celluloid. The very memorable musical score (primarily by Elliot Goldenthal) continues to be quite possibly the finest soundtrack I have ever encountered (Moby's instrumental "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters" is one of those tunes that has just glued itself to my soul). I believe "Heat" is a movie that should be studied, embraced, cherished and remembered by all those who realize that movies can create thoughts and emotions within us that nothing else on Earth can. 5 stars out of 5.