Intense and exciting.

Rating: Null/10 (16 April 2002)

If there are two actors in Hollywood that can make the Tinseltown beaming as proud parents of some brilliant child, it has definitely got to be Robert De Niro and Al Pacino - at least for those who had been watching movies from the seventies, arguably the finest decade in movie business.
Both of them had appeared in one film, The Godfather part 2, though they never shared any of the scenes together. It was the film that launched both of these acting greats' careers (alongside some earlier efforts like the first Godfather for Pacino and Mean Streets for De Niro). Both rejuvenated the Method style of acting after the industry suffered a great draught of talent in the acting department ever since Brando and Newman burst into the scene in the fifties. Great many good actors did appear in the sixties, but none of them made as much impact as Pacino and de Niro.

Both of them made many good movies and save many bad movies with their performance alone, and then came the year 1995 when the whole world saw the appearance of these two in one film - Heat.
Heat takes the traditional cops and robbers story to a new height. While the script coughs occasionally, intentionally bending on furthering exploration on the third dimension of its characters, it is nevertheless exciting. It could have been a great action piece in the tradition of, well, any good cop and robbers movie, but dammit, this movie has, in addition to Pacino and De Niro, John Voight (midnight cowboy), Val Kilmer (Tombstone), and Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan). On top of that we have Michael Mann as the director. This guy directed The Last of the Mohicans and helped to create TV series like LA Law and Miami vice. He later directed the excellent The Insiders (also starring Pacino and the legitimate successor to Pacino and de Niro, Russell Crowe). Enough name tossing.	The highlight of this show is the 15minutes scene involving both de Niro and Pacino. Pacino, the cop, invites de Niro the thief, for a cup of coffee. And THAT big scene says all about these two's supreme acting talent. Both are in awe of each other, respectful and at the same time very observant of each other's thoughts. The dialogue sounds like an ordinary conversation, and it is not. It is so intense that even Pacino, who was ranting and raving throughout the show, gets quiet, now that he found a worthy adversary. The whole movie was worth seeing for this scene alone.
That doesn't mean that it is without some action. The initial robbery involving a security van, the shootout in the streets of LA and the final cat and mouse chase between the two leads are exhilarating, and heart-pounding. There are subplots involving Pacino's relationship with his ex-wife, and stepdaughter, while de Niro find himself stepping out of his discipline' by getting intimate with a graphic designer. The scenes slow down the film, but add extra edge to the lead characters. Grab a video or DVD of this film. Have a good time.