LA Takedown a better movie?

Rating: 7/10 (1 March 2002)

Heat is an excellent film but I was always disappointed with the end; I thought the DeNiro character wouldn't just blindly run from Pacino - he would have waited for him and shot him down, surely? I must have counted a dozen occassions where DeNiro could have safely ambushed Pacino. The earlier film LA Takedown, which is almost scene-for-scene and line-for-line the same as Heat, has a better ending I think, more true to the De Niro character anyway. Why Mann changed it for the implausible ending of Heat I can't conceive.
Having just watched the two films within a day of each other, it is amazing how close they are; even down to the cut-aways, close-ups and zooms. The scene in the diner and then outside when Waingrow is about to get shot but disappears is identical in every way, as is the scene when Patrick/Neil meets the girl when reading a book (except in Takedown she designs album covers and in Heat it's CD covers!).
The bank heist shoot-out in Heat is one of the best scenes in cinema history. Wonderfully put together and filmed, the violence is shocking rather than merely exciting. It makes you feel that you've been a witness to a real life shoot-out; a very different and disturbing feeling to what most cinema violence gives you these days.
I would have given it 10 out of 10 but for that ending. Somehow the last 10 minutes make you feel that you've wasted the previous 2 hours and 40 minutes. Gotta go down to 7/10.