The Summit

Rating: 9/10 (4 November 2008)

One of the amazing things about Heat is that during an almost three hour running time of the film, your interest in what happens in the summit teaming of Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro never flags for a second. Part of the reason is because these guys are at the top of their profession and brought their A game to the parts.
The roles they have are not as good as Jake LaMotta, Jimmy Conway, or Max Cady for DeNiro or Frank Serpico, Michael Corleone, or Bobby Deefield for Pacino. But Neil McCauley master criminal for DeNiro and Jake Hanna dogged detective for Pacino does show these guys at their best.
You can best describe Heat as a long running version of Law and Order Criminal Intent with a big budget. Like that show the action shifts back from the cops to the criminals and smoothly for director/writer Michael Mann. We see both of these guys as rather similar to each other. DeNiro prides himself on the fact that he says he can drop any relationship if it interferes with work. And Pacino is on his third marriage and his mistress is the job. He's been a failure twice as a husband and about to go thrice in the romance department.
Mann gave Pacino and DeNiro a really outstanding cast for support in Heat. People like Val Kilmer are in DeNiro's gang, Jon Voight is the Sam Jaffe like mastermind of the operation. Pacino on his team has Mykel T. Williamson from Forrest Gump and Ted Levine best known as Captain Stottlemyre on Monk.
This action film also does not stint on woman's roles. Diane Venora is fine as Pacino's estranged wife. Amy Breneman is also good as DeNiro's woman who watches her man helplessly trapped by his own criminal rules go to his destruction. Best in the film on the distaff side is Ashley Judd as Val Kilmer's loyal wife who has one great choice given her by Williamson, betray her husband or lose their kid. See how she handles it.
Although the scene was shoehorned into the plot and would never happen in real life, Pacino and DeNiro do meet and have a brief scene together over a cup of coffee in a diner. They compare notes so to speak and take the measure of the other guy. Since these two guys are the most acclaimed actors of their generation, the scene artificial though it is takes on a whole different dimension. It's like when writers give Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots a climatic meeting scene even though in real life it never happened.
But like in Heat, it should have happened.