Cash of the Titans?

Rating: 5/10 (9 March 2006)

(There are Spoilers) Overlong and mindless crime drama that has to do with this master bank robber Neil McCauley, Robert De Niro, who becomes the object of L.A police Let. Vincent Hanna's, Al Pacino, obsession, The two get involved in a battle of wits and bullets that turns the city of Las Angeles into Baghdad Iraq by the time the movie "Heat" is finally over. Inolved in a number of high profile robberies Neil has become a bit soft in his life long career in crime. Neil is planing to pull off just one more multi-million dollar bank robbery and then call it quits and retire.
Let.Hanna on McCauley's tail want's to prevent him from pulling off his grand slam bank holdup but is always stymied as McCauley is one step ahead of him. Even though after the first armor car robbery, that resulted in the three armor car guards getting shot to death by McCauley & Co., all McCauley and his gang did was do each other in. As well as being, or trying to be, double-crossed by big time mob money launderer Roger Van Zant,William Fichtner, who's over one million dollars in untraceable Bearer Bonds the McCauley gang took in the armor car robbery and attempted to sell back to him at .60 on the dollar. This after Van Zant got back all the money that he lost in stolen bonds back which were covered by his insurance company.
Were then bombarded with both McCauleys and Hannas personal life that goes on for almost an hour like a day time TV soap opera and really has very little to to with the movie's basic theme about crime and punishment in the streets and airport of L.A. All that confuses and bores you to the point that your almost put to sleep watching it.
Who cares about Hanna's relationship with his old lady Justine, Diane Venora, and who she sleeps with! Even Let. Hanna doesn't seem too concerned he's only angry that Justine's lover Ralph, Xander Berkeley, has the nerve to watch his TV set and couldn't care less if he slept with Justine or not. Det. Hanna's step-daughter Lauren, Natelie Portman, is so upset over his and her moms bickering that she attempts to kill herself. Lauren does this by slashing her wrists and then trying to drown herself in her step-fathers apartments bathtub.
McCauley also gets involved with this young graphic designer Eady, Amy Brenneman, but it's so out of character for him that it leads to his ultimate demise at the end of the movie. McCauley juggling between Eady's going along with him, to heaven knows where, in his attempted escape from being captured by the police at the L.A Airport and then going out of his way to murder Wangro, Kevin Gage, at the airport hotel that's crawling with L.A policemen. Wangro who was involved in the opening scene armor car robbery was later kicked out of McCauly's gang, and almost killed by him. Yet how did Wangro somehow seems to have gotten a hold of McCauley's later plans to rob a midtown L.A bank? it's never explained what and how Wangro knew about the impending bank robbery since he was totally out of the loop when it was planned and later executed! And what exactly had Wangro's later involvement with the Van Zant mob have to do with him informing on McCauley's plans to the police?
There's also Jon Voight as this big mob honcho Nat who looks like General Custer at the Little Big Horn. Voight pops up every now and then in the movie, giving McCauley advice that's always on target, but who's part in the film is never really explained by the script writers. As well as not clarifying the story behind the Shiherlis' Chris & Charlene, Val Kilmer & Ashley Judd. The wacky couples zany and bizarre relationship soon threatens to screw up all of McCauley's plans for his last big score.
Chris gets badly shot up in the L.A bank robbery and looks like he's about to die from his wounds but then what seems like only hours later he shows up, with a new haircut, totally recovered! Chris also comes up with a new identity that was so convincing that even Let. Hanna and the LAPD had to let him go free! This after he was involved in the deaths of at least a dozen innocent people and L.A policemen that afternoon!
We earlier saw Charlene give Chris some kind of hand signal as the L.A police were about to pinch him, in a sting they set up for him. But all Chris did was turn around in his car and drive out of sight and like magic he was immune from prosecution?
The movies ridicules ending was about as exciting as a game of chess. Both Let. Hanna and his rival and adversary in the movie Neil McCauley are seen running for what seemed like the length of the Boston Marathon all around L.A Airport and it's surroundings. This was all done I suspect so those of us, still awake and waiting to see the big showdown between the two, could finally switch the channel and get back to watching something that makes more sense and is far more interesting; like the Saturday Morning Cartoons.