Lukewarm

Rating: 5/10 (12 September 2003)

Michael Mann's western "The Last of the Mohicans" frustratingly told a complex story (that of the settlement of America) with a black-and-white vision of good and bad. In "Heat", he performs the reverse trick, and in a story of a brutal mass murderer and a policeman, tries to assert the moral that they're really both the same. It doesn't convince in this convoluted, but essentially shallow film, in which even deNiro and Pacino fail to do much more than fill out familiar outlines; the fault in part lying in the degree of respect that Mann accords both stars. Neither wholly realistic nor truly slick; "Heat" holds the attention but little more, nothing really sparks except for a ludicrously over-the-top gun battle of which Peckinpah might have been proud. For a really great movie in a similar genre, watch and compare to "The French Connection", 25 years older but lean, taut and merciless; "Heat" adds nothing new except for sentiment and flab.