Michael Mann’s finest hour is famous for bringing Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together on screen in this taut psychological drama about an obsessive detective and a brilliant thief whose fates are linked after a high-stakes securities heist.
Brilliant LAPD robbery/homicide cop Lt. Vincent Hanna (Pacino) follows the trail from an armoured car robbery which left three people dead and becomes fixated on deadly but equally brilliant master thief Neil McCauley (DeNiro) and his crew, who are taking Los Angeles to the cleaners.
Vincent is on his third marriage, though judging from the dissatisfied state of mind of his Prozac-gobbling wife, Justine (Diane Venora), he’s soon about to be in the market again.
Neil, on the other hand, believes you should never become involved with anything you can’t walk away from in 30 seconds – he doesn’t even have any furniture in his apartment. But when graphic artist Eady (Amy Brenneman) comes along, he finds himself falling in love for the first time.
Both men have surrogate “families” outside their homes. For Vincent, it’s his squad of hard-nosed cops with whom he inevitably spends more time than with his wife and emotionally unbalanced stepdaughter.
For Neil, it’s his gang of fellow crooks, including the unstable Chris (Val Kilmer) and the shady Nate (a creepy-looking Jon Voight), his silent partner in crime.
When Neil catches Chris’ wife, Charlene (Ashley Judd), in an extramarital tryst, he becomes a de facto marriage counsellor, and despite Neil’s short temper, his affection for his partners is always unmistakable.
Heat includes one of the most spectacular shoot-outs in film history as DeNiro and Kilmer rip through downtown Los Angeles with both guns blazing in an all-out firefight when the cops interrupt a bank robbery.
Cast members were trained for three months by former SAS sergeant Andy McNab to make their automatic weapon use look like the real thing. The results set a standard for cinematic gunfights, which hasn’t been beaten since.
Lt. Vincent Hanna
Al Pacino Neil McCauley
Robert De Niro Chris Shiherlis
Val Kilmer Nate
Jon Voight Michael Cheritto
Tom Sizemore Justine
Diane Venora Eady
Amy Brenneman Charlene Shiherlis
Ashley Judd Sergeant Drucker
Mykelti Williamson Casals
Wes Studi Bosko
Ted Levine Donald Breedan
Dennis Haysbert Roger Van Zant
William Fichtner Lauren Gustafson
Natalie Portman Kelso
Tom Noonan
Director
Michael Mann
Video
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