Still Warm

It seems everyone's talking about 1995's Heat lately (probably because the studio's trying to generate buzz ahead of the sequel) and there it was on The Criterion Channel. So I watched it for the first time in nearly thirty years. I like it a lot more now. It's a movie for older viewers.

It's very cool. Elliot Goldenthal's score veers between subtle electronic atmosphere and rock n' roll pulse. Mann had a reputation for music from Miami Vice so that played into it, I think. The whole film's filled with the anxiety of being perched on the edge of destruction, or being just around the corner from "the heat" as De Niro's recurring line has it.

All the promotion at the time was about De Niro and Pacino but their performances aren't particularly interesting. Not that they're bad. Even Pacino, who'd already lost the subtlety that distinguished him early on, is not strictly bad with his bombast. I can believe a weathered L.A. detective is like that. Watching it last night, I didn't remember much about my viewing approximately three decades ago, but when Pacino entered a warehouse with his men I knew something about the scene involved Pacino shouting, "Great ass!" So it's certainly a memorable performance.

De Niro isn't so different from his character in Goodfellas but, frankly, without the complexity. I don't think he phoned in any role at that stage in his career but this was probably the closest he got to it. It's nowhere near as interesting as what he did in Cape Fear and Jackie Brown. But that's fine. Coolness is this movie's excellent vibe and De Niro's plain performance works perfectly for that.

I was more surprised by what an amazing supporting cast it has. In main roles there are Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Natalie Portman, and Ashley Judd. But the film also has Danny Trejo, John Voight, Henry Rollins, Jeremy Piven, and Hank Azaria. That's a party.

That legendary action sequence, when the heist goes wrong and there's a gunfight in the street, is still exemplary. The sound design and editing are fantastic. You feel the pervading terror of what's happening like few other scenes of its kind in other movies. It's still an amazing film.