I'm currently re-watching this 1990s great movie, Heat, starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Pacino is head of the robbery-homocide division of LAPD and De Niro is a master thief and criminal. They square off against each other, and to my knowledge this is the only movie that they appear on screen together. Pacino is great, although he can be a little bit over the top at times (as he was in Scent of a Woman.) De Niro is at his best, a tough as nails hood who won't let anything stand in his way.
Val Kilmer and the underrated Tom Sizemore (I still think he deserved a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Saving Private Ryan) are De Niro's lieutenants. Ashley Judd is Kilmer's wife. A very young Natalie Portman plays Pacino's step daughter. Dennis Haysbert (of 24) is a ex-con on probation who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Overall, this is one of the best movies of the 1990s, IMO. I recommend it to everyone. Anyone else seen it?
Heat
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Decent Flick. De Niro is at his best when is is not in Mafia Movies.
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danlo
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Heat rocks! Michael Mann, creator of my one of my fav TV shows: Miami Vice, is a damm good director. The Keep, Manhunter, The Insider, Last of the Mohicans and Heat are all top notch flicks. And from the reviews I've been reading his new film, Collateral with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, is supposed to be killer too...!
fall far and well Pilots!
Heat is among my 30 or so all-time favorite films. In fact, for a while, I considered it THE best film of the 90's. De Niro and Pacino are such cinematic icons, it's great to have them square off against each other like this. The supporting cast is good, too. Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd...and this is one of the few critically acclaimed movies that poor Mr. Kilmer finds himself in; most of his own films end up being fodder for film critics.
I'm looking forward to Michael Mann's new film, too! Tom Cruise has got himself a funky new look. I trust Mann: he is almost incapable of making a bad movie. (I say almost...Last of the Mohicans left me cold. And it wasn't actually bad...just flat.)
I'm looking forward to Michael Mann's new film, too! Tom Cruise has got himself a funky new look. I trust Mann: he is almost incapable of making a bad movie. (I say almost...Last of the Mohicans left me cold. And it wasn't actually bad...just flat.)
Excellent Movie. Outstanding director!
P.S.
Mann is slated to direct "Gates of Fire". For those of you who have read this book and appreciated Mann's previous efforts you can begin to imagine why, if done right, "Gates" might become my all-time favorite movie ever!
P.S.
Mann is slated to direct "Gates of Fire". For those of you who have read this book and appreciated Mann's previous efforts you can begin to imagine why, if done right, "Gates" might become my all-time favorite movie ever!
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. John Stuart Mill
The lack of response to Heat was inexplicable to me, too. Over time, I came up with some guesses:
-Not many people knew about the film because of lackluster advertising (heck, even I almost missed it). Worse, it came out quietly at the end of March, right when everyone else's attention was on the Oscars, where Forrest Gump won big. (A similar fate was dealt to Mann's Ali: it was released in December 2001, but was lost in the Oscar buzz surrounding Fellowship of the Ring and A Beautiful Mind.)
-audiences weren't willing to sit through a 3-hour crime drama, even if it had Pacino and De Niro. Yet, later that year, Mel Gibson came out with his own 3-hour epic Braveheart, and audiences had no problem flocking to that movie. That showed how enormous Gibson's box office appeal was (and still is).
-people were expecting a furious De Niro/Pacino slug fest, not a meditative, existential film.
-Not many people knew about the film because of lackluster advertising (heck, even I almost missed it). Worse, it came out quietly at the end of March, right when everyone else's attention was on the Oscars, where Forrest Gump won big. (A similar fate was dealt to Mann's Ali: it was released in December 2001, but was lost in the Oscar buzz surrounding Fellowship of the Ring and A Beautiful Mind.)
-audiences weren't willing to sit through a 3-hour crime drama, even if it had Pacino and De Niro. Yet, later that year, Mel Gibson came out with his own 3-hour epic Braveheart, and audiences had no problem flocking to that movie. That showed how enormous Gibson's box office appeal was (and still is).
-people were expecting a furious De Niro/Pacino slug fest, not a meditative, existential film.
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taraswizard
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Heat
What a great fricking movie. Kilmer attempts acting and actually does a halfway OK job of it. DeNiro as the icewater for veins head of his crew, that take down scores (jewelery jobs, bank jobs, hijackings, sorta generalist criminals) is so good in this part. An overlooked role is Amy Brenneman (Eady) as the girl DeNiro's character took a liking to after meeting in a bookstore.
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FizbansTalking_Hat
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IMO, this movies shows one of the most realistic an most dramatic bank robbery I've ever seen on film, speaking of which, I think I might go pop my dvd into the player and give it a whirl, its an amazing movie, a lot of people dismiss it b/c its not so fast paced but when the action does start, its good, there is just a lot of character build up and development in the film, cheers.
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I picked up the new DVD of this the other week and have re-watched it twice since. It just keeps getting better and better. Mann does such a tremendous job creating the relationship between De Niro and Pacino. I'd also forgotten how good Val Kilmer is in this. The way his face changes from flushed with success to cold-blooded killer as he walks out of the bank is absolutely chilling.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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Mann is the Man!!!! 
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. John Stuart Mill
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jacob Raver, sinTempter
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Very good film...just constant in your face for three hours...but suffers slightly from lack-luster relationship/ending and almost too much material crammed into that time... ***1/2 out of ****
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