to say that i love this film, would be an understatement

Rating: Null/10 (14 June 1999)

i must say that there are two things about this film which could have been either omitted or improved: first, the pacino-deniro coffee shop scene is a big let-down. the direction and script leave a lot to be desired, and it's to the credit of pacino and deniro's considerable acting talents that the scene manages to stay afloat. two lesser actors would not have managed to save the scene. secondly, the portrayal of the women as passive, servile, demure characters is a little disturbing, and though it was in the interest of the story that these characters were portrayed as such, a re-write or two could have done the women a little more justice, by giving them a backbone...
having said that, this is one of the best action films of the past ten years! the truck heist scene that opens the film, the shootout in downtown l.a. to close the second act, and the climactic airport runway chase scene (reminiscent of the closing scene of peter yates' "bullitt," starring steve mcqueen. hmm...) are pulse-raising, nearly heart-stopping fun! the script is superbly researched and this shows in its clinical, detail-rich depiction of the activities of both cops and thieves. the character development of the principals (women excluded, as stated above) is magnificent, and mann even goes so far as to develop minor characters (like dennis haysbert's short-order cook, donald breedan, or ted levine's bosko), so that when something happens to them (usually violent death), the audience cares. so many times in films, characters are killed and the audience doesn't give a thought as to who they were or what they were about, simply because THE SCREENWRITER doesn't do it for the audience, as he or she should (hell, in "star wars" a whole planet is destroyed and all that happens is obi-wan kenobi gets woozy! 'disturbance in the force' my ass! talk about gratuitous violence!). "heat" is not so much a film about "what happens" - in "heat," you know what's going to happen. the script treads on very familiar ground - but rather about "how it happens." mann provides the audience with a lot of information about the latter.
finally, michael mann's visual sense, with the great dante spinotti's help, is breathtaking! (c'mon! anyone who can make a .45 on a glass table-top look sexy has good visual sense in my books!). i own this film because i love it, and because it's a three-hour lesson in framing and composition. there are shots in it that "make me wanna holler," to quote the immortal marvin gaye. the score is great, too, by the way! i own it as well.
c