Hotter than July

If you know of another film as satisfyingly broad as Michael Mann’s Heat, then please tell me now because since seeing it in the cinema I haven’t found anything to touch it.

The premise is simple so I’ll give it to you straight. There’s a thief and his gang and there’s a cop who wants to catch them. Er… That’s it. If you give that as a starting brief to 100 different writer/directors in Hollywood you’ll probably come up with 10 or 12 different movies, but I promise you none of them will be Heat.

Neil McCauley is a career criminal and he’s never been caught. He’s ex-military and he surrounds himself with people he trusts to pull jobs when he needs to. His gang is tight, disciplined and tough. In the opening scene McCauley picks up a new guy, Waingro, and they go out to rob a Brinks armoured van. McCauley’s team are professionals. Armed and masked they only want the money, but Waingro is antsy and wants to prove himself. He shoots one of the guards lined up watching the takedown. Another guard goes for his gun and is shot. The last guard stands trembling with his arms raised. With a nod from McCauley he is executed. It’s a brutal moment. A slip of unchecked violence followed by a cold-blooded murder.

When Detective Vincent Hanna arrives later on he understands exactly what went down.

“Once it escalated into a murder one beef for all of 'em after they killed the first two guards, they didn't hesitate. Popped guard number three because... what difference does it make? Why leave a living witness?”

Mann’s writing is as lean and muscular as an Olympic high-jumper. His male characters harbour no illusions about what they do and who they are. Once they realise that the police are on to them, McCauley’s gang have to decide whether they want to continue with the next job they are planning. Michael Cheritto played by the terrifying Tom Sizemore states his intentions as clearly as possible:

“For me, the action is the juice.”

Heat is a cat and mouse game that functions on many levels. Hanna and McCauley circle around each other as hunter and prey although it’s never clear which is which. But if you have any kind of love of the movies of the past 30 years, you cannot watch Heat without being aware of another angle. Al Pacino is Hanna. Robert De Niro is McCauley. This is the first and, to date, the last time these titans of the cinema have shared the screen, Godfather II notwithstanding. When the two characters sit down for an innocuous truce scene half way through the movie, the audience is informed not just by what has gone on until this point in the movie, but by the talent and unbounded ego of the two actors. Throughout the meeting, neither raises a voice and yet there is more testosterone pouring from the screen than in Jerry Bruckheimer’s entire back catalog. They are the ultimate alpha-males sniffing for each-other’s weakness while admiring the strength. It is an electrifying scene and part of what makes Heat much more than an action movie.

Hanna: You know, we are sitting here, you and I, like a couple of regular fellas. You do what you do, and I do what I gotta do. And now that we've been face to face, if I'm there and I gotta put you away, I won't like it. But I tell you, if it's between you and some poor bastard whose wife you're gonna turn into a widow, brother, you are going down.

McCauley: There is a flip side to that coin. What if you do got me boxed in and I gotta put you down? Cause no matter what, you will not get in my way. We've been face to face, yeah. But I will not hesitate. Not for a second.

McCauley has stayed out of trouble for so long because he understands himself and exactly why he does what he does. He tries to explain to Hanna why he will be impossible to catch.

“A guy told me one time, ‘Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.’ Now, if you're on me and you gotta move when I move, how do you expect to keep a... a marriage?”

Sure enough, Hanna’s third marriage is already falling apart when we first meet him. His wife cannot connect with him and it is destroying whatever love there once was. Like the other men in the movie Hanna has a glib explanation for his behaviour:

“All I am is what I’m going after.”

You would be hard-pressed to argue that Michael Mann is a writer sensitive to women. From Miami Vice to The Last of the Mohicans, from Manhunter and The Insider through to Ali, he has rarely written anything even faintly sympathetic to women. He is a man’s man and he is investigating male responsibilities and fallibilities. But with Heat, Mann came closest to understanding the role women play in the complex struggles of men to cope with the violence around them.

Diane Venora plays Hanna’s wife – a finely drawn character part that avoids the usual clichés about the frustrated cop’s wife. Natalie Portman has a stunning but small role as Hanna’s stepdaughter.

On the flipside, Amy Brenneman appears as Eady, a single woman that McCauley meets drinking coffee. Eady is new to town and hasn’t really connected with many people. McCauley befriends her and breaks every rule he has lived by until now. She is a gentle, intelligent soul drawing Neil out of himself into a world he has shunned. In the following simple exchange we understand more about McCauley’s life and his denial than all the scenes with his criminal buddies.

Eady: You travel a lot?
McCauley: Yeah.
Eady: Traveling makes you lonely?
McCauley: I'm alone, I am not lonely.

The last significant female part belongs to Ashley Judd in her breakout role as Charlene Shiherlis. Charlene is married to Chris who is McCauley’s second. Charlene is looking to escape from Chris the life he leads when she is picked up by the police. There is real tension as Charlene must choose between freedom for herself and her son and betraying her husband who she was going to leave anyway. For once the audience sees the human cost of the decisions men make when they choose lives of crime and violence. Mann’s skill is in creating sympathetic characters on both sides of the divide and the resolution of Charlene’s relationship with Chris is heartbreaking.

In the middle of the movie there is the gang’s final bank robbery. McCauley’s gang are professionals carrying off a daring raid in broad daylight:

McCauley: We want to hurt no one. We're here for the bank's money, not your money. Your money is insured by the federal government, you're not gonna lose a dime. Think of your families, don't risk your life. Don't try and be a hero.

Somehow, the police are tipped off and they arrive as the gang exit with the money. What follows cannot be described easily. Simply put, it is the loudest, most terrifying, most elegantly executed gun battle ever committed to celluloid. And yet it feels utterly real with its insane orchestration and acts of instant and irreparable violence portraying a war zone as horrific as anything in Saving Private Ryan. I was totally unprepared for the overwhelming power of this scene when I saw it in the cinema and it has become the scene by which all movie shootouts must now be measured from the sublime (Neo and Trinity rescuing Morpheus) to the ridiculous (anything from Bad Boys II).

At around three hours running time there is more than enough in Heat for two movies, but Mann the director holds it together. There are more great performances with semi-familiar character actors being used to the full. Danny Trejo has never been better and Val Kilmer as Chris Shiherlis was never this good again. Further down the cast list there are meaty parts for Dennis Haysbert, Mykelti Williamson, William Fichtner, Jeremy Piven, Tom Noonan, Xander Berkeley and Hank Azaria. Look out also for Jon Voight in one of his startling are-you-sure-it’s-him parts as McCauley’s fence.

Heat is certainly the best cops and robbers movie of the past 30 years but it is also a meditation on male loneliness and the pressure on men to excel and provide. Los Angeles is the perfect backdrop as the city simultaneously represents bursts of aggressive action together with an underlying sense of loneliness and anonymity.

The irony of course is that the two leads, McCauley and Hanna – De Niro and Pacino – have more in common with each other than their colleagues and friends. They have bonded in their enmity and shared goals and their twisted relationship forms the centre of the movie, turning Heat into one of the most intelligent, textured, shoot ‘em up action films of all time.


DVD Information

Heat is long overdue for a special edition with a bunch of extras and a considered review of the movie’s impact on subsequent film-making. Instead, we are stuck with a plain vanilla DVD transfer with your choice of language for subtitles. Available from Amazon and all reputable outlets for under 17 bucks.

The film carries an R certificate which may be a bit strong although the movie does have mature themes, realistic violence, teenage suicide and some bawdy talk. Give it a go.