Heat (1995)

An opus. The film for which Michael Mann will rightly be remembered. It is an urban environment, particularly that of Los Angels, that seems to be Mann’s muse. He likes to play with the dynamic between the honest and law abiding, the good cops, and the fascinating but amoral, Tom Cruse in Collateral, and here Robert De Niro’s Neil. Al Pacino is Vincent the good cop, and he and Neil serve as mirrors to one another, much as could be argued Pacino and De Niro do in real life. It’s all about parallels, and this is never more apparent then in the two dinner party scenes, De Niro’s able criminals, and Pacino’s capable cops. There essentially the same, not in words, but in setting, the simple conversations people have away from work, and what they revel about the leads relationship with the women in there lives. A cast of massive talent. Intimacy in epic. Ruminations on genera conventions, and human relationships. A master piece, you will remember this movie as an experience. Five out of Five.