Inevitable Joy

Rating: 10/10 (12 April 2007)

I hated this picture when I first saw it in a theater, hated it again on video when I was trying to like it, then saw it on cable one night when there was nothing good on (!) and fell in love - all the family background that I once hated finally clicked for me. That, and the length it adds, may be what turns some people off, including several of my friends. (That and feeling that Pacino is over the top here, which I have also learned to love - he's the last romantic left in acting.) In the end, there is no denying that Heat is a 10 out of 10 in these times in film, maybe better than The Departed, if not as culturally relevant as Goodfellas. Miami Vice fails because Mann did common themes of that film and Heat already in Collateral, and with more detachment than in Heat - so by the time he washed out in Miami Vice, passion (or "heat") had drained, and Farrell and Foxx had nothing to replace it with. I hope Mann makes one as good as Heat again, and collects an Oscar like Marty. Where he'll get the talent, I don't know.