You may have noticed that the advertising campaign for the recent Miami Vice film has said "from Michael Mann, director of Heat". And like me, you may have been wondering, what on earth is "Heat"? Well, I'll tell you. It's an epic crime thriller that unites Al Pacino and Robert De Niro; ... Read review
Having developed his skill as a master of contemporary crime drama, writer-director ... more
Michael Mann displayed every aspect of that mastery inHeat, an intelligent, character-driven thriller from 1995, which also marked the first onscreen pairing of Robert ...
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Having developed his skill as a master of contemporary crime drama, writer-director ... more
Michael Mann displayed every aspect of that mastery inHeat, an intelligent, character-driven thriller from 1995, which also marked the first onscreen pairing of Robert ...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
When Al Pacino and Robert De Niro square off Heat sizzles. Written and Directed by ... more
Michael Mann Heat includes dazzling set pieces and a bank heist that USA Today's Mike Clark calls "the greatest action scene of recent times". It also offers "the most...
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When Al Pacino and Robert De Niro square off, 'Heat' sizzles. Written and directed by ... more
Michael Mann, Heat includes dazzling set pieces and a bank heist that USA Today's Mike Clark calls 'the greatest action scene of recent times'.It also offers 'the mos...
International star and martial arts master Jean-Claude Van Damme kicks into high gear in ... more
Desert Heat a scorching high-intensity action thriller. Desperate to flee the inner demons raging inside him mysterious loner Eddie Lomax (Van-Damme) rides to the last outpost of an abandoned desert highway prepared to end it all. But when a savage gang steals his prized cycle and leaves him for dead Eddie's life is saved by a soulmate from his past. Burning with a new reason to live Eddie sets off on a one-man search-and-destroy mission against his attackers. Fuelled by Van Damme's powerful performance Desert Heat is an explosive and sensational adventures from first to last.
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Captain Ivan Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger) nicknamed "Iron Jaw" is a ruthless cop who ... more
heads Moscow's homicide division. He is sent to Chicago to pick up a Russian drug-dealer arrested on a minor traffic violation. In Chicago Danko is assigned to partner with Detective Art Ridzik (James Belushi) a wisecracking plain clothesman notorious for cutting corners. Different people from different cultures Danko and Ridzik Work closely together and develop a unique relationship laced with humur and respect. The chase leads them into a world of international drug trafficking controlled from within the walls of Statesville Prison and puts Ridzik in conflict with his superior Commander Donnelly (Peter Boyle) as the two renegade cops alternate police procedure "Russian Style" with Ridzik's free-enterprising techniques.
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Somebody's going to pay...because he forgot to kill me. Ruthless criminals a dedicated ... more
honest cop sultry women and a gripping plot - all the elements of a classic police action-drama are here in full force. Police Sergeant Bannion (Glenn Ford) is investigating the apparent suicide of a corrupt cop then is suddenly ordered to stop - and The Big Heat is on. Driven to unravel the mystery Bannion continues probing until an explosion meant for him kills his wife. He resigns from the force and soon learns that behind it all is the powerful underworld led by Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby) and his cold-blooded henchman Vince Stone (Lee Marvin). When Stone's girl Debby (Gloria Grahame) makes a play for Bannion Stone disfigures her face. In revenge she tells all she knows. Ultimately Bannion and Stone square off in a life-or-death confrontation...
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Production Year: 2002 - Thriller - Director: Bharat Nalluri, Rob Bailey, Andy Wilson - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Matthew MacFadyen, Keeley Hawes, David Oyelowo, Peter Firth, Jenny Agutter, Lisa Faulkner
Production Year: 2002 - Thriller - Director: K.C. Bascombe - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Jesse James, Rachel Skarsten, Charles Powell, Linda Purl, Kevin Zegars
Thriller - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Timothy West, Neil Morrissey, Tara Fitzgerald, Annette Crosbie, Pauline Quirke, Rob Brydon, Denise Van Outen, John Thomson, Kevin Whately, David Suchet
Advantages: Brilliant story, direction, action... looks amazing too Disadvantages: One bit of dialogue that sounded fake - otherwise none
...the film.
Heat was made in 1995, making it… erm… eleven years old now (and they say that kids are getting stupider…) so it's sometimes funny to see all these people when they were younger. Al Pacino and Robert De Niro look just the same as they have done for the last thirty years, but Natalie Portman is a little girl, and Dennis Haysbert makes a pretty badass young black man before he went all presidential.
The story ... ...flat if you see the heat coming round the corner". The film spends a lot of time examining this relationship, as well as the relationship between Vincent, his wife, Justine (Diane Venora) and his step-daughter Lauren (Natalie Portman), which is put under great strain by his obsession with his cases.
Vincent has his own team to help him track down Neil and his crew, and do so through a heady mix of informants, betrayals and clever ... more
You may have noticed that the advertising campaign for the recent Miami Vice film has said "from Michael Mann, director of Heat". And like me, you may have been wondering, what on earth is "Heat"? Well, I'll tell you. It's an epic crime thriller that unites Al Pacino and Robert De Niro; two great actors who have surprisingly never worked together. I could have sworn they were both in the Godfather Part 2, but maybe not…
Robert De Niro plays Neil McCauley, a thief who is trying to organise one last armed robbery before he retires and leaves the country. Al Pacino is Vincent Hanna, the detective trying to bring him down, whilst also trying to keep together his crumbling marriage. As if these two star leads weren't enough, there is a large supporting cast of famous names and faces, including Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman, John Voight, William Fichtner (from the TV show Invasion), Hank Azaria (from The Simpsons) and Dennis Haysbert and Xander Berkeley (who were both in 24). At times having such a famous cast was distracting, since I started playing "spot the actor" rather than watching the film.
Heat was made in 1995, making it… erm… eleven years old now (and they say that kids are getting stupider…) so it's sometimes funny to see all these people when they were younger. Al Pacino and Robert De Niro look just the same as they have done for the last thirty years, but Natalie Portman is a little girl, and Dennis Haysbert makes a pretty badass young black man before he went all presidential.
The story of Heat is extremely complicated, so I'll just give you the basics. It starts with a daring armed robbery on a delivery vehicle by Neil and his crew, during which they accidentally brutally murder all the guards. They blame one of the crew for the mess-up, and are about to kill him, when he escapes. It certainly won't be the last they see of him.
Neil also meets a young lady (Amy Brenneman, I think) and falls in love, thus compromising his golden rule: "never have anything you can't walk away from in 30 seconds flat if you see the heat coming round the corner". The film spends a lot of time examining this relationship, as well as the relationship between Vincent, his wife, Justine (Diane Venora) and his step-daughter Lauren (Natalie Portman), which is put under great strain by his obsession with his cases.
Vincent has his own team to help him track down Neil and his crew, and do so through a heady mix of informants, betrayals and clever investigation. In many ways, Vincent and Neil are extremely similar; they just happen to be on the opposite sides of the law, and they are dramatically thrown against each other in this thrilling film.
First and foremost, the story is excellent. It is very complicated and sometimes hard to keep up with, due to the sheer number of characters and the multiple plot strands, but if you concentrate, it's definitely worth it, with numerous twists and turns to keep you intrigued. It's extremely demanding of the audience, but you could never complain of an insufficient pay-off.
The script is also very good indeed, apart from one scene where Vincent's wife drifts intro a monologue that was completely unlike normal speech and sounded ridiculous. Al Pacino makes plenty of wisecracks, but in general it's quite heavy stuff. One of my favourite lines is when Hank Azaria says "Who?", to which Pacino responds "Who? Who? What are you, a f***ing owl?" I must warn any sensitive viewers out there that there is a lot of swearing in this film, as well as a fair bit of violence, but what did you expect from a crime thriller?
If you've seen any other Michael Mann films, such as Collateral or Miami Vice, you'll know that he specialises in night-time cityscapes, and that his films are photographed exquisitely. Heat is no exception. Dark is definitely the key word here; much of the film takes place at night in Los Angeles, with some absolutely gorgeous cinematography to capture the atmosphere. There's one scene with Neil and his girlfriend looking over the whole city, and it's so astonishing that it almost looks fake.
There are also some excellently filmed action sequences. The opening robbery and the subsequent shootings by the gang (wearing hockey masks) are strangely exhilarating, and Heat features one of the best, most action-packed shoot-outs you will ever see. Neil's crew take on the police on the streets of L.A., and they just create carnage, with plenty of vehicular destruction and a whole lot of bullet holes. This scene is loud, visceral and goes on for a very long time - very exciting. The final scene is also incredibly tense, and again Mann's use of dark and light plays a huge part.
Heat really is an intelligent action-thriller. It features fantastic performances from not only the two leads, but from virtually the whole of the cast (although I wasn't too convinced by Natalie Portman early on), and it's not all action and chases - there's plenty of time spent developing the two main characters and examining what makes them tick. Considering it's billed as the film that brings De Niro and Pacino together, they're only on screen together for a disappointingly short time. However, due to the hunter/hunted nature of the story, this is inevitable, and when they do come together for their main scene in the café, they really have a connection of some kind.
At 171 minutes, Heat is very very long, and you may think that sitting through nearly three hours of Al Pacino could cause you to fall asleep. But this running time allows for a story with a lot of depth, and most importantly a lot of twists and surprises. Trust me, you'll be completely gripped. ___________________________________________
You can buy the DVD of Heat for the low low price of £5.95, from www.filmnight.com.
Directed by: Michael Mann
Starring:
Robert De Niro … Neil McCauley Al Pacino … Vincent Hanna Val Kilmer … Chris Shiherlis Jon Voight … Nate Tom Sizemore … Michael Cheritto Ashley Judd … Charlene Shiherlis Natalie Portman … Lauren Gustafson Dennis Haysbert … Donald Breedan Hank Azaria … Alan Marciano William Fichtner … Roger Van Zant
Advantages: Pacino and De Niro. Disadvantages: See opinion
...30 seconds flat if the heat is coming.” This philosophy is put sorely to the test when he falls heavily for an attractive and sexy young artist (Amy Brenneman), and again this relationship and how it develops is explored by director Mann. ~ ~ But what unquestionably makes the film a resounding success are the incredible action scenes.
There is a vivid armoured car heist, and a bank robbery in broad daylight. This goes disastrously wrong, and ... ...Angeles between Hanna’s team of cops and McCauley’s robbers is one of the most dramatic and realistic you will ever be likely to see on film.
Eventually McCauley puts a “team” together for their final big “heist”, that if successful will allow them all to retire in luxury.
~ ~ There is also a meeting in a café between Hanna and McCauley that shows graphically the similarities between the two men, and the grudging ...
the_mad_cabbie 26.03.2001 (09.10.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Heat (DVD)
Advantages: Acting, directing, camera, special effects Disadvantages: Nothing
...good as Heat and everything was expecting it to be, because, to be honest, Heat is a brilliant film, one that is worth wtatching over and over again.
The DVD is available from amazon.co.uk for £4.38. It's a bargain at that price in my opinion. Recommended. ...
pmcds 01.12.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Heat (DVD)
Advantages: superb acting great action and story. Hard to beat Disadvantages: none
Just look at the ingedients of this movie.Firstly you have the director Michael Mann.Then you have my two favourite and probably the best two actors of recent times, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.They are more than abley supported by Val Kilmer and John Voigt to name but two.Then add a great storyline together with one of the best and most atmospheric music scores I've ever heard. The result is a 2 hour 40 minute masterpiece.
The story revolves around ... ...playing cat and mouse with the local Police force, led by Pacino.
Both of the leading characters are wonderfully portrayed as being totally dedicated to the life they have chosen.Thy are both at the top of their line of work and as the story unfolds it becomes obvious that only one of them will succeed.
Although for me De Niro and Pacino steal the show, the support cast do a great job and it unusual for so many characters to be developed in one ...
murky5 27.04.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Heat (DVD)
Advantages: Powerful cast. Action scenes are exceptionally tense Disadvantages: Long
If anyone watching Heat for the first time gets a distinct feeling that history is repeating itself, they are not imagining things. The original screenplay was used for a film called L.A Takedown a few years earlier. Having seen both, I can vouch for the fact that whole chunks of the script are identical. Heat has been expanded upon to become a much more heavyweight and longer offering, with the characters of the two main antagonists, De Niro and ... ...the violence leaves you breathless, with the foiled bank raid at the centre of things. Apparently, everyone had special training in making it look like they can handle an automatic weapon, and it's difficult to imagine that they were only firing blanks.
The film was hugely successful, and deserves it on several fronts.
The first pairing of Pacino and De Niro. The non-stop action, enhanced by the incidental music, especially throughout the bank ...
BNibbles 16.12.2000 (05.05.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Heat (DVD)
Advantages: visually fantastic, outstanding soundtrack Disadvantages: not perfect but not far off
I have watched this film over and over. It’s a fantastic piece of cinema but not perhaps for the reasons you expect. The director Michael Mann took his 1989 film “L.A. Takedown” and re-made it with two of the world’s greatest actors. Let me being with what this film is NOT. It is not a gangster film, it doesn’t feature particularly memorable dialogue and doesn’t feature the best performances of DeNiro or Pacino (although they are very good as usual). ... ...tale of two obsessed perfectionists with DeNiro as a deadly cool thief and Pacino as a workaholic cop with serious relationship problems. The plot is perfectly satisfactory but it is in the direction, visuals and music that the film excels. It is visually very cool (despite the title) with lots of blue shades, cool suits and minimalist apartments. The pitched battle with heavy automatic weapons on the streets of L.A. is fantastic (and deafening) ...
victor 12.07.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Heat (DVD)
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Advantages: Cold War tension captured very well Disadvantages: Not confident enough
With the Cold War an ever present feature of much of the latter part of the 20th Century, and with the on screen presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger throwing out film after after film throughout the 1980s, it was only ever a matter of time before a film came from him with a link between Russia and the USA. In Red Heat, the two different styles of policing combining in this film.
The Plot
Captain Ivan Danko is a Russian cop chasing down a notorious drug and crime lord, Viktor Rostavili, known as Rosta. Rosta escapes to Chicago, and Danko pursues him, being teamed up with Chicago cop Detective Sergeant Art Ridzik, who is also on Rosta's tail following a spate of murders linked to the crime lord's Chicago branch. Will the Cold War get in the way of one of the biggest crime lords ever being brought down, or can these two law enforcement ...
pmcds 13.06.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Red Heat (DVD)
the gangster action and the sparring between the two leads seems somewhat familiar. Personally I found it overly clichéd? Then again, I'm not a fan of spoof movies which I didn't realise this was until it was too late!
Starring double trouble Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds, with Jane Alexander, Madeline Kahn, Tony Lo Bianco, Richard Roundtree and Rip Torn in supporting roles, City Heat could be classed as a gangster spoof movie. It was directed by Richard Benjamin and released way back in late 1984. The screenplay was by Sam Brown and Joseph Stinson and it was produced by Fritz Manes.
The film was certified PG as some scenes may not be suitable for young children and runs for about 1 hour 40 minutes.
You can pick up the DVD of the film from Amazon Marketplace for about £5 (depending on availability). I found it very difficult to ...
anonymili 20.05.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of City Heat DVD
Advantages: Superb acting and beautiful cinematography Disadvantages: I didn't want the film to end!
, The Householder, A Room With A View, The Deceivers, Howards End, Maurice and The Bostonians. 5 second trailers are shown for many of the productions.
Ismail Merchant then discusses several of these, saying how he felt about choosing people to play the various parts. He states how they had a budget of $2 million to make Heat and Dust and it was one of Merchant Ivory's most successful films. He also says how their films are "of the mind, heart and intelligence".
As DVD extras go, there weren't many, but what there were, were interesting to view.
WHERE TO BUY
You can pick up a copy of the DVD from SelectCheaper.com for £5.99 or from 101cd.com for £10.99, or even from sendit.com for £14.99. I'm pretty sure you can get it even cheaper on ebay if you hunt around. It's also available from amazon.co.uk from £11.99.
ABOUT MERCHANT IVORY ...
A tense cop thriller in which a messed-up but keen LAPD homicide detective Vincent Hanna, battles wits with Neil McCauley, a deadly and elusive criminal.
"...[Mann's] .357 Magnum opus....Macho-intellectual chutzpah..." (Entertainment Weekly, pp.72-3, 21/06/1996)
"...Gobs of talent are amassed..." (Premiere, p.35, 01/12/1995)
"...This spellbinder vibrates with style, substance and humor, plus voluptuous camera work..." (Rolling Stone, p.138, 28/12/1995)
"...[HEAT] serves to bolster the case for Michael Mann as the key American auteur of the last ten years..." (Sight and Sound, p.43-4, 01/02/1996)
"...A film that deserves Oscars for photography, editing, sound and arguably scoring....Heat is packed with unforgettable subcharacters..." -- 4 out of 4 stars (USA Today, p.1D, 15/12/1995)
"...Stunningly made and incisively acted by a large and terrific cast....[HEAT] stands apart from other films of its type by virtue of its extraordinary rich characterizations..." (Variety, 11/12/1995)
DVD Description
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are finally united on screen in this riveting story about an intense rivalry between expert thief Neil McCauley (De Niro) and volatile cop Vincent Hanna (Pacino). McCauley will stop at nothing to do what he does best and neither will Hanna, even though it means destroying everything around them, including the people they love. With a solid supporting cast that includes Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Ashley Judd, and Natalie Portman, HEAT is a truly epic crime story.
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