Heat

Released: 1995
Directed by: Michael Mann
Staring: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer

The next movie on our gangster/heist journey was Heat. Another really long movie! I really enjoyed this one as well. I think the movie did a fantastic job at comparing Robert Di Niro & Al Pacino. While they are on different sides of the “right/wrong” spectrum, they are very much the same.

The movie also shows that you don’t ever ever bring on someone new, that you don’t trust. EVER!

It also has EVERYONE…In addition to those three: Danny Trejo, Kevin Gage, William Fitchner, Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, Hank Azaria, Diane Venora, Jon Voight, Dennis Haysbert (President Palmer), Jeremy Piven.

We’ll start with Al Pacino. Al Pacino is a great detective with the LAPD homicide unit. While he’s generally a step behind De Niro, he does have brilliant deductive reasoning skills – like when he figures out why they are in the shipyard. He’s on his third marriage, which is failing. His wife, Justine (Diane Venora), is frustrated, because Pacino gives all of his time to work. Then again, if this is his third marriage, he was probably a successful detective while they were dating. Story lines like this annoy me. She married a guy that didn’t have a 9-5 job. You shouldn’t expect him to be any different. Now I did like her line about “there’s sharing and then there’s leftovers.” I think she is right about that. But generally, I don’t side with the wives.

I enjoyed when she slept with another man, and Pacino kept yelling at him to sit down. I did find it interesting that while he didn’t have a great relationship with Justine, he did have a connection with his step-daughter (Natalie Portman). He noticed her on the side of the road and went to take her home. She went to his apartment, presumably to ask for help, but when he wasn’t there she cut herself. While the movie only hinted at it, it showed him giving her more attention than her mother. Remember one of the opening scenes where Natalie Portman was freaking out about her clothes, and Justine was reading a paper and ignoring her? I think his relationship with his step-daughter showed he absolutely can care about things other than work. In the end, he chose work (after saving his step-daughter’s life of course).

Then there’s his semi-foil, Robert De Niro. I love Robert De Niro, I actually love both him & Pacino. De Niro is cold. He wishes he had a family, like in the scene where he & his crew are out to dinner with their families. He’s alone. He starts having a relationship with Violet Eady (Amy Brenneman). Ultimately, he is able to walk away. He is a man of discipline, which is actually why he dies.

I like the scene when he & Eady are driving to the airport, you can see him thinking/debating/twitching. He knows he needs to ignore the ability to go get Waingro. He knows he has to let it go, but he can’t. That ultimately leads to his downfall. He walks away from Eady (which reminds you of his conversation with Pacino at the diner, you have to be able to walk away from everything with a 30 second decision). He walks away from the precious metals heist, he walks away from the woman he loves.

Val Kilmer’s character wasn’t my favorite. He was beyond technically proficient. He has a gambling problem, cheating problem, and an anger problem. In spite of all of that, he & Ashley Judd love each other. In spite of her saying she may leave him, and her starting to have an affair, she saves him. She warns him in the end and he’s able to get away. It’s kinda sweet in the end.

In the end in the airfield, De Niro & Pacino holds hand. I was kind of sad that De Niro died, but I guess that’s the work of a good script/director/actor. You make the bad guy sympathetic, so you feel for him and root for him! There were only a few parts where I thought the movie was slow.