Heat

"You wanna be making moves on the street? Have no attachments. Allow nothing to be in your life that you cannot walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner." - Neil

release year: 1995
genre: police thriller
viewing setting: home Bluray 3/19/22 and 9/9/17 and 9/13/15 and 8/31/13 and home DVD, 9/23/10 and 9/1/05 and 11/2/01

synopsis: Neil leads a group of professional thieves; Vincent leads a group of police detectives; both are the best at what they do, and eventually find themselves pitted against each other.

impressions: This is as close as you can get to an epic police thriller. Each side has a strong, brilliant, charismatic leader and a number of unique members and contacts. The thieves start the movie with one daring daylight robbery, setting the tone, and the action never slows down. There are also some issues that characters, both cops and thieves, have to sort out (example: when to put family before career.) All in all, this is a tightly-scripted, tightly-directed masterpiece. If you like it, you should also see Thief by the same director, Michael Mann - that movie features a similar antihero with the same flaws who won't back down from his principles, even when it leads him to ruin.

body count: 20 confirmed

things to watch for: beginning at 1:47:37, the long walking shootout in broad daylight

acting: Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino are outstanding as the two leads. Also turning in good supporting perfomances are Tom Sizemore, Val Kilmer, and Jon Voight as colleagues of Neil's.

final word: A must-see crime drama/action.

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