Heat [Blu-Ray] [Region Free] (English audio. English subtitles)

I've watched this gripping, fascinating movie a few times since its release, but recently decided I wanted to know more about how it was made, and so bought the two-disc DVD edition. The film itself is a masterpiece: an expertly-wrought portrayal of two men in conflict: Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), a tenacious, idiosyncratic police officer, and Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro), a smart, calculating thief. The story is ostensibly about Hanna's pursuit of McCauley and his gang following an armed robbery on the streets of LA, but the other components which have been added - including depictions of their women and private lives, their colleagues, the city and environments in which they work - make this a fully-realised, three-dimensional epic which repays repeated viewing. For example, I hadn't previously noticed the link between McCauley's dismissive response when Hanna asks him - in that justly celebrated face-to-face encounter over a cup of coffee in the middle of the chase - whether he'd ever wanted a normal life ("What the f*** is that? Barbecues and ballgames?") and the moment in their next meeting in the parking lot of a downtown supermarket when McCauley's shooting at Hanna, but hits... barbecues (amongst a lot of other things). In addition, there's the pleasure of watching great actors (which includes a very strong supporting cast, featuring Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Kevin Gage, Hank Azaria, Dennis Haysbert and others) making their craft appear effortless. In particular, Pacino plays Hanna as a man apparently (or pretending to be) just on the edge, especially in interrogation scenes: there's a classic moment when he does something unexpected when talking to Hank Azaria's character, and Azaria's look of unsettled astonishment is totally genuine. De Niro's reading of McCauley is someone who doesn't want to be recognized or remembered, but who's surprised to find himself making an emotional connection with the innocent Eady (Amy Brenneman). And then there are the intensely realistic action set-pieces - especially the bank heist with the unforgettable sound of gunshots echoing off the sides of the crystal canyons of downtown LA - which make everything else you've ever seen in this genre appear stale or derivative. The extras on this set include a detailed audio commentary film track from director Michael Mann, three trailers, an hour-long documentary about the making of the film, and two short features about the Pacino / De Niro coffee scene and the scouting of locations for the film. They provide a lot of entertaining and interesting detail about how the film came to be and how it was made, so if you're as much a fan as I am, it's a recommended purchase.

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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!

Heat is written and directed by Michael Mann. It stars Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora, Ashley Judd, Amy Brennerman and Danny Trejo. Music is scored by Elliot Goldenthal and cinematography by Dante Spinoti. Big time thief Neil McCauley (DeNiro) is after one last major score before he retires, but hot on his tail is Vincent Hannah (Pacino), a cop equally and methodically as driven as he is himself. In the build up to Heat's release, much was made of it being the first on screen pairing of DeNiro and Pacino. A mouthwatering prospect for sure, it proved to be worth the wait and unfolds as a lesson in restrained acting with two modern greats affording each other the respect that was due. What we didn't realise in the build up to the film's release, was that it would prove to be one of the greatest cops and robbers movies of all time, brought to us by an auteur director whose kink for realism and commitment to research stands him out from much of the modern directing pack. Rarely does a film come together as one, where all the cogs of the engine are in tune, but Heat is one such picture. From cast performances to visual aesthetics, to screenplay and actual substance of story, Heat is as meticulous as it is thrilling. There are a myriad of characters brilliantly stitched together in one de-glamorised City of Angels, as plot develops, and each character and their crumbling relationships come under inspection, we are witnessing a coarse viewpoint of human nature, where people's lives are ended or defined by their choices. Everywhere you look, here, there are folk cracking under the strain of being exposed to high end crime, dreams, hopes and happiness are unlikely to be achieved, and this is on both sides of the law. For Heat, Mann fuses the tonal and visual ticks of Manhunter with that of the adrenalin rushes from Last of the Mohicans, with the former gorgeously born out by Spinoti's pin sharp photography, the latter thrillingly realised by Mann's skill at action set pieces. Once again word of mouth about the key heist and shoot out in the film led to high expectation, and again there is no disappointment. L.A. becomes a battle ground, rapid gunfire punctures the air, cars swerve and crash, bodies fall, visually and aurally it drags you to the edge of your seat, an extended action sequence fit to sit with the best of them. The kicker as well is that because Mann has been so detailed in his characterisations, we care about what happens to all parties, we understand motives and means. Which in a film with such a huge support cast is quite an achievement. There is enough in Heat to fill out a dozen other cops and robbers films, fans of neo-noir and crime films in general are spoilt supreme here. It's not rocket science really, put a group of great actors together, give them an intelligent script to work from and let them be guided by a director who will not sit still, and you get a great film. Heat, the ultimate predator and prey movie, where from beginning to end it refuses to be lazy or cop out, and energy and thought seeps from every frame. 10/10

Having watched Heat more times than I care to remember, due to it being my favourite movie of all time, its release on Blu-ray was my first must-have purchase for the format. And it didn't disappoint; if anything the Blu-ray delivery is in some ways a re-release, because the sheer beauty and technical magnificence of Heat has been reawoken. Seeing it as sharp and crisp as possible on Blu-ray was as close to being able to watch it again as a first-timer - breathtaking. Some movies just don't upscale well; upgrading them to a near-perfect format either exposes faults that were smudged out by the lower-res picturing of VHS or a less than impressive DVD transfer, or the film just doesn't stand up to the kind of intensity required, a better format not necessarily equaling greater enjoyment. Heat, however, is not one of these films. If anything, Mann's epic neo-noir love letter to LA and its brooding electric light of night is arguably the perfect film for the Blu-ray format. The contrast of colour-to-black is genuinely stunning, almost as if the film was made with today's technology (rather than fifteen years ago), and the film serves up even more, now adding its subtleties to any already solid blend of brilliant direction, casting, performance and writing. Like the recent fanfare surrounding the Beatles' remastering, I would argue that Heat reaching Blu-ray is the motion picture equivalent: an already brilliant piece of film-making simply gets deeper and more compelling, proves even more confounding such is its perfection. My one criticism (and the reason this Blu-ray came in on four stars and not five) is that I too had to play around with the sound before I could get a decent balance between dialogue and effects. Fiddling with the balance between my stereo TV and an additional amplifier and stereo speakers was okay eventually, but it would appear that this Blu-ray was single-mindedly balanced for multi-speaker viewing. Which is a bit of a shame, and may impair some people's enjoyment. PS: There was some concern on the internet pre-release that several minutes had been excised. I can confirm that it hasn't; or if it has (and I was keeping a cautionary eye out) I genuinely didn't notice.

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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.

Although Manhunter is my favourite Michael Mann film, Heat is a far more polished exercise in movie making. Stylish, well photographed and fast-paced, but with elements of slower, more thoughtful action. You can often feel more empathy with the villain than the hunter at times. Despite their limited screen time together, you'd feel that Pacino and De Niro had been action opposite each other for years, even though this was their first joint effort as far as shared screen-time goes (they were never together in Godfather II). Val Kilmer receives a lot of heat (pun intended) for his performance, but I feel that is unjustified as his character isn't fleshed out enough, possibly deliberately so as not to detract from the two main stars' roles. The primary extra (along with Mann's commentary) is a hour-ling making of documentary. It's interesting but not an essential watch in my opinion. The picture quality is (as you'd hope) a big step up from my old VHS copy, which I'd never replaced with a DVD. All in all, a very enjoyable watch which should lead to repeat viewings for most people.