Mann's "The Last of the Crime Movies" - no more good and bad guys.

Rating: 10/10 (18 April 2000)

The first time I started watching "Heat" on the VHS I realized that something is wrong and that this isn't a traditional and classical cops-and-robbers genre, and that the film's seductive poster picture of a few masked men is just a simple promotive trick to attract the potential viewers who will surely expect a luxury of shootings, chases, fights and swearings - all settled clichees of an American crime genre. Since I didn't complete watching the movie, I rented it a few months later and gave it my full attention. I got under the skin of every replica and shot. Very soon it was more than cristaly clear what was wrong: "Heat" truly is a motion picture that just goes beyond the expectations of the cops-and-robbers genre and easily steams into the kingdom of movie masterpieces. Further elaborations are not necessary. "Heat" really is, not just because of the author's anti-thesis as the corner stone of this epic tale, "the last crime movie", which brings its every element, wheter it's writing, directing, acting or any other important segment of filmmaking, to complete and astounding perfection and stratified storytelling complexion which pulls the story with unbelieveble smoothness and calm, literally excelling from one shot to the next, interweaving its situations with some kind of magical, subtle and modern elevation and with juicy dialogues sharpend to the utter perfection of screen writing, surely simptomatic and authentic for the characters' surroundings and their professions. Michael Mann, probably one of the strongest and studious Hollywood directors today, breaks down the accepted thesis of life and film and asks the discussable question from which he creates the corner stone of his masterful master-piece, although remaining the exact definition of time and place of the action, and, in the end, still only fictious characters he adores so much. A parade of acting icons and Hollywood pearls shines with the foreground of picturesque characters, Pacino's appropriate mannerism and De Niro's intimistic coldness of a loner. Are there any other more suitable characters for the profiles of those two? And is there any scene in their careers that can be as historic and as fascinating as the coffee confrontation scene? The one that can, in some way, be a simbol of the plot of this unavoidable master-piece. Which is, unfortunately, the most underestimated film of the decade.