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Can't Beat Heat One of those Academy snubs that makes you question who you have to blow in this town to make an impression, Heat ignites the screen with a gritty, real-world look at cops and robbers living, loving, killing, and dying on the streets of L.A. Bulging at the seams with ass-kicking actors, Hollywood heavyweights, and the shades of gray that reside between the black and whites, Heat posts a crime drama that needs be amongst any discussed most wanted. Heat touches off with a by-the-numbers heist of an armored car led by Neil McCauley (De Niro) and his band of disciplined desperadoes (Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Danny Trejo). All is going smoothly until new guy Waingro (Kevin Gage) let's his blood-lust overcome him, killing one of the guards in cold blood. Knowing they just went from robbery to homicide, McCauley orders the execution of the only other living witness - the last guard. The crew leaves spikes for the black and whites in pursuit, drives a few blocks away where they dump their incriminating gear and vehicle, and head off in a different set of wheels without missing a beat. On the scene shortly thereafter, Lt. Vincent Hanna (Pacino) and his team of do-gooders (Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi, and Ted Levine), set about figuring the how's and why's in the effort to discern the who; Pacino shines as the eye of the storm, his Hanna all business and hip to the facts that the audience just witnessed: De Niro and his crew are callous, but efficient, bad-asses. What follows is a spiderweb of well thought out stories, connections, and foreshadowing. The personal lives of both cop and robber are fair game as the lines between good and evil blur to the point of non-distinction. It becomes not about wrong or right for either McCauley or Hanna but about winning against the other, proving that each got the better of the other by the 'rules' as they are understood. Heat is packed with eye-widening supporting roles filled by the likes of Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, Dennis Haysbert, Amy Brenneman, William Fichtner, Hank Azaria, Jeremy Piven, Henry Rollins, and Tone Loc, as it scorches the screen with scene after scene of what acting and writing is all about. The actors feed off each other in scenes that bring to mind beasts circling one another - but no one is moving - except when they are running full bore, filling the streets with automatic gunfire more akin to Beruit than Los Angeles in the greatest and most realistic gunfight in cinematic history. The ending might leave you a little empty, wondering what will become of certain characters, but then that's a little realistic too isn't it? For some it was simply a little too realistic I suppose, but its achievement (Directed by Michael Mann) remains undeniable; I could teach a class on filmmaking using only this movie. email this review to a friend
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