Heat [DVD] [1995]

This film has never been topped in its genre. Even Mann himself hasn't come close. The pacing is perfect, the music is excellent, the characters are meaty, the performances are unforgettable, the plot is gripping for the full 2 hrs 40 min, the cinematography is icey cool and the bouts of action are hard-hitting realism at its best. All these achievements aside, at the heart of this movie, is a lesson about choices, last chances, and knowing when enough is enough.The parallels drawn between the law and criminals are made throughout, highlighting the similarities of men beholden to a life of danger and risk, living on pure adrenaline, and the sacrifices to their personal lives their actions entail.In many ways, it's a film about commitment, to a job or to intimacy, about single-minded men who are obsessed with 'the work', stuck on a ride they can't get off of and unable to change their ways before their personal lives crash and burn. It's about situations when there are no good or right choices, just a list of things you have to do to get the job done and the things you lose in the process.Likewise, there are no good or bad guys in the traditional sense here, aside from one or two characters. There are only shades of grey. But, you like almost everyone in this film, rooting for the bad guys to get away, whilst wanting the cops to just go home empty-handed but safe with their families. It's an odd dynamic but it works so well.Anyway, this film leaves me in a state of awe at how perfect it is. In an age where content is king and talent is spread out so thin across countless TV shows, streaming services, and interminable superhero franchises, this film makes you fall in love with cinema again. It is stylish, atmospheric, gritty, real, understated, masterful, and made with passion. This is the film Christopher Nolan wanted to make but ended up making Batman movies instead.

PERFECTION! There is simply no other words to describe this film! An impressive, perfectly directed, perfectly casted, psychologically interesting and ultimately heartbreaking story about policemen and criminals, as good as the best film noir classics from the 40s and 50s. Below, more of my impresions, with some limited SPOILERS.This is the story of a gang of ruthless bank robbers, who don't hesitate to kill if they are forced to. There is the impressive leader, Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro), sniper/compulsive gambler and youngest member of the band Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer, in one of his best roles EVER!), adrenaline junkie Michael Cheritto (Tom Sizemore) and a stoic, strangely charismatic Latino thug known simply as Trejo (played, of course, by Danny Trejo). They all met in high security prison, they formed the gang after serving their time and they are determined not to go back. Ever.Following some events which you will have to discover by yourself they atract the attention of two people they would rather avoid. The first is an incredibly tough detective, Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), who heads his own team of veterans with an iron hand. The second is a certain Mr Van Zamt (William Fichtner), money launderer for drug cartels - he is not himself very dangerous and as it turns out not even very bright, but he can throw an almost unlimited amount of money at any problem he wants and that has consequences. Serious ones... I will not say anything more about the story.The casting is perfect, simply perfect. All main actors gave everything they could and even secondary and third range roles were played optimally, like those held by Jon Voight, Ashley Judd and young Natalie Portman. It is a long film (170 minutes) but not even one second was wasted. The amount of work put in making of this masterpiece is staggering as every scene, every decoration, every line of dialog were clearly reviewed and polished with utmost care. The scenario is VERY GOOD, strong, logical, rich in details - a very rare thing nowadays in Hollywood... The director also used some tricks, like a short moment when we see people through a termal vision camera - and that is an AMAZING moment! At one moment the hero and the villain will have a parley - rarely did I see such a great moment of cinema as the calm, polite but filled with deadly meance conversation around a cup of coffee between screen giants Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in "Heat"...There is only a couple of action scenes and they are all good, but THE scene of THE main shootout is breathtaking, simply breathtaking - this is EXACTLY as action but also war movies should be made! This is a violent movie, but violence is also kept under control, at exactly the needed level. This is also a tragic film, exactly as the best American film noir classics from the 40s and 50s but there are also accents taken from French gangster movies from the 50s, 60s and early 70s, which were and still are real monuments of cinema.Finally, there is the ending; it is a long one but the tension is maintained at the maximum level all the time. Also, the ending is right - tragic but morally right and that is another very strong point, too rare in modern cinema...I could go about this film much longer but I will stop here to avoid any temptation to give more spoilers... For my personal taste this is one of those films which simply reached PERFECTION! I will never part with my DVD and I will definitely watch and rewatch it again and again. ENJOY!