HEAT
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1996 Chuck Dowling
(1995) ** - C:Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Ashley Judd, Wes Studi, Mykelti Williamson, Natalie Portman, Jeremy Piven, Hank Azaria.
Finally, the two greatest actors of our generation, De Niro and Pacino, appear together in a film (they were both in "Godfather II" but never shared a scene together). Actually, one could almost argue that they don't share a scene together in "Heat" either. Their characters have three scenes together, but the way they are shot, the two never really appear on screen at the same time, which is a huge disappointment, much like the film itself.
I have a theory about "Heat" and the people who like it. I have seen the film twice now. The first time I left the theater thinking, "Hmmmm, well that was pretty good." Here's why. You go into the film with huge expectations. I mean, De Niro and Pacino! Cops verses bad guys! A heist movie! How bad can it be? Also, the film is almost three hours long. Well, there must be a lot of story to tell here. Then, when the film ends, a triumphant music score plays as you're leaving the theater, making you think that you've just seen a good movie. So people leave with the impression they they have just watched a fine motion picture. But, there were many things that started to bother me the more that I thought about them, so I decided to give the film a second chance when released on video. And I was right in my assumptions.
I asked others who had liked "Heat" what exactly it was that they liked about the film. No one could really answer the question. A friend of mine told me that the film was all about how people change, which is a ridiculous statement to me and if you read on you'll understand why.
The rest of this review contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film I suggest you stop reading here.
I have no problem with long movies. As long as a movie is good, it can go on forever as far as I'm concerned. But "Heat" is unnecessarily long. Countless subplots are completely unnecessary, and scenes run on forever. For example, Pacino and his girlfriend have a discussion, and Pacino gets mad and storms out of the room. The scene should end. But no, he goes to the kitchen, looks around, stands there and thinks, and then exits. A minute and a half to two minutes that we don't need to see. And many scenes are like that. Characters looking at things, reacting to things forever, stuff we just don't need to see.
There are so many unnecessary subplots here. For the first hour and a half, every few scenes or so we see this black guy applying for a job, talking to his girlfriend, etc. What does this have to do with anything? His character does figure into the big heist at the end, but why is his character worthy of background info? We don't get any on the characters that we are interested in. De Niro's a crook, that's all we ever get to know. Tom Sizemore and Val Kilmer work for him, that's all we know. How do they all know each other? How long have they been working together? Never explained. Nah, we don't need to know that, but let's watch this very minor character cook on a grill at a diner and argue with his boss. Yeah, ok. Then there's the daughter of Pacino's girlfriend, who towards the end of the film attempts suicide. Pointless, has nothing to do with anything. No reason we have to be subjected to that. Her character was only in two other scenes, so who cares? There are two romantic subplots here and neither of them work because neither of them are interesting.
Then, there's stuff that just doesn't make any sense. De Niro's character seems to be very detailed about his work. Everything is planned perfectly and back-up plans are always ready to go. He knows exactly what he's doing and where he'll be at all times. Yet for the first heist of the film he's hired this psychotic to work with his team. And this guy is really nuts. Obviously he would have some sort of criminal record, something De Niro would have checked. Also, after the heist the four criminals leave a resturaunt and proceed to attempt to kill the psycho because he almost botched the heist, because he's a psycho. So De Niro beats him to the ground, pulls out his gun and prepares to blow the psycho away as the team watches. Then a police car drives by, distracting them for about three seconds. They look down, the psycho is gone. They look around, but in a period of about ten seconds the psycho has completely vanished without making a sound. Ridiculous.
"Heat" is by no means anywhere close to being original. There's not one scene in the film that hasn't been done a million times before. For example, De Niro and crew are planning the final heist and they know that Pacino and the other cops are on their trail. So they all discuss if they should participate or not. When they get to Tom Sizemore, they tell him, "Look, you've got a wife, a kid, and you have more money than you could ever spend in a lifetime... don't do this. Walk away now." Sizemore refuses, and they keep pressuring him, remind him of what he has. So obviously Sizemore is going to die. It's a ridiculous cliche. And he does. Also, there's a scene in the film towards the end that if it had stopped there and the credits would have rolled, I would have been satisfied. It's when De Niro is driving away with his new girlfriend, smiling because he's finally happy, and when Pacino and his girlfriend are in the hospital waiting for the daughter to recover. Pacino tells her that he'll be there for her when she needs him. This would had been slightly more original because THEN the film would have been about how people can change. But no, De Niro turns the car around to take care of some more crime business, and Pacino runs off to catch him. Oh, so the cop keeps being a cop and the criminal keeps being a criminal. Gee, I've never seen that before in my life. Groundbreaking.
I place complete blame for this dismal failure on writer/director Michael Mann. He just had no earthly idea what he ws doing here. He had no control over Pacino, because every once in a while he would break into his character from "Scent of a Woman", yelling at times for no reason. He had a nice trailer put together for the film, and then used different takes in the actual film itself. But the takes used in the trailer were much better than the actual takes that were in the film! Val Kilmer's character has maybe eight lines and spends most of the film wandering around with a weird expression on his face like his head is empty or something. "Heat" had SO much potential that the first time you see it, you just can't admit that it was bad, because you so desperately wanted it to be good. And the truth is that it's just as bad as everything else, it just has better actors in it.
-- Chuck Dowling
Please visit my movie reviews web site at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ You'll be glad you did.
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