Heat (1995)

rating: ****

the story: An epic showdown between cop and criminal.

review: Long billed as the long-awaited pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino onscreen together (they previously both appeared in Godfather Part II, but in separate sequences), Heat is actually an embarrassment of riches, in hindsight, full of actors who would populate the big and small screens for years to come.  And it's arguably the predecessor to The Dark Knight in terms of action movies.

Here's the talent assembled for Heat: De Niro, Pacino.  Val Kilmer and Natalie Portman.  Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd.  Jon Voight (who like Kilmer sports long hair for the movie).  Tom Sizemore.  Mykelti Williamson, who the year previous had his breakthrough appearance as Bubba in Forrest Gump, and would later play another cop in the underappreciated TV gem Boomtown.  Dennis Haysbert, years before playing a president in 24, or helping us be in good hands with All-State.  Danny Trejo.  William Fichtner, who still has yet to be properly noticed.  Wes Studi, Hank Azaria, Xander Berkeley (who also later appeared in 24).  And Jeremy Piven, another talent who deserves much greater recognition for his screen presence.

And they're all here!  Just spending the time enjoying them make their appearances, large and small, is worth watching this one.

Of course, it circles back to De Niro and Pacino.  De Niro is in subdued mode, not the outsize gangster he is in Scorsese movies but more as he appears in Tarantino's Jackie Brown, two years later.  Pacino, as he often does, chews a lot of scenery, but when it counts, he matches De Niro's mood, and it's everything you always heard Heat was.  These are screen giants, and their epic showdown is exactly what it was always supposed to be.

But Michael Mann, who made his name in television, including Miami Vice (which he later adapted to the big screen in the same mold as Heat), isn't merely interested in acting.  He's got a big action movie in mind, in the kind of scope he basically perfects, in the years before superheroes came to dominate the genre, in the years after the '80s saw them dominated by action stars.  This is an experience that crosses all boundaries. 

And yeah, it's exactly the kind of experience that Christopher Nolan later duplicated for The Dark Knight.  The hype and magnetism of Heath Ledger's Joker was what everyone talks about, but Nolan was the first director since Mann to nail this kind of action movie.  And at its heart, Dark Knight is more this kind of action movie than it is a superhero movie, and I think that's what Nolan realized, and was going for, and what audiences liked so much about it, too. 

If Heat doesn't get talked about enough these days as a milestone of the '90s, and filmmaking in general, it's because it's remembered now for the De Niro/Pacino pairing, and the fact that after this their careers were never quite the same again.  De Niro reached a dramatic peak, and went in the direction of comedy, and Pacino became dismissed for what's since become best illustrated by Nicolas Cage, the idea that acting style is suddenly a crime, where the idea of movie stars has slipped by the wayside.  Which is ironic, as the dawn of the modern blockbuster begins with a movie where the acting is, distractedly, the whole point, by observers who can't quite keep the whole scope of the experience in mind.

1995 Capsule Reviews

Toy Story
rating: *****
review: Pixar becomes an instant phenomenon with this animated pairing of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen and the pleasures of childhood reinterpreted.

Grumpier Old Men
rating: ****
review: The second one is as good as the first, maybe even better, with everyone relaxing comfortably into their roles.

The Quick and the Dead
rating: ****
review: Sharon Stone plays the atypically typical Western lead with superb supporting help from up-and-coming talents Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Don Juan DeMarco
rating: ****
review: Impossibly romantic fantasy, basically a more adult Princess Bride, featuring Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando, the first great movie for one, and possibly the last great for the other.

Higher Learning
rating: ****
review: The great black drama from this era not directed by Spike Lee.

Desperado
rating: ****
review: You know Puss in Boots from the Shrek movies?  It was the latterday version of movies like this, in which Antonio Banderas briefly looked like the second coming of Errol Flynn.

The Usual Suspects
rating: ****
review: Hollywood figures out Quentin Tarantino by unleashing the secret weapon known as Kevin Spacey.

Braveheart
rating: ****
review: Mel Gibson gives birth to the post-Kevin Costner historic epic with this portrait of the Scottish savior (ah, pun intended).

Mortal Kombat
rating: ****
review: Seems like an outrageously inflated rating, but then, it's also an outrageously entertaining video game movie, kind of an early preview of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Apollo 13
rating: ****
review: This is where Gravity/Interstellar/The Martian came from, the beginning of the popular perception that NASA only breeds tragedy, and great movies, these days.

Nixon
rating: ****
review: Oliver Stone presents a nuanced portrait of the controversial president.

Waterworld
rating: ***
review: Kevin Costner famously stumbles in his effort to create an entirely new epic vision.  But it's not nearly as bad as legend suggests.

Batman Forever
rating: ***
review: As much as I love Jim Carrey, I think he's what ultimately tipped the balance in this iteration of the franchise, even though he was only logically following the tradition set by Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito before him.

12 Monkeys
rating: ***
review: Terry Gilliam and Bruce Willis attempt to keep up with Brad Pitt's efforts to distance himself from expectations.

Seven
rating: ***
review: In the tradition of Silence of the Lambs, the good guys have a hard time keeping up with the bad guy, this time Kevin Spacey (famously unbilled, but unlike in Usual Suspects a secret that been kept all these years).  Brad Pitt again attempts to subvert expectations, this time with his classic freakout at the end of the movie.

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
rating: ***
review: The follow-up to his first big hit finds Jim Carrey struggling mightily to find something else to say about the character.

Dracula: Dead and Loving It
rating: ***
review: Not quite Robin Hood: Men in Tights, but this Mel Brooks parody of Bram Stoker's Dracula still provides some classic moments.

Dead Man Walking
rating: ***
review: Sean Penn successfully transforms his image into a dramatic actor, but the movie around him is so leaden that it's hard to remember why we should feel sorry for him.

Casino
rating: ***
review: Martin Scorsese returns to the gangster well without a compelling central lead.  I guess this is what Goodfellas would be like without Ray Liotta's narration.

Bad Boys
rating: ***
review: Will Smith's first big movie is memorable enough for me to remember the name Mike Lowry, but he's got better things in the future.

Mr. Holland's Opus
rating: ***
review: Feel-good story, but ultimately about as iconic as the eponymous score.

Othello
rating: ***
review: Notable for being one of Laurence Fishburne's early lead performances.

Wild Bill
rating: ***
review: This Jeff Bridges Western is like a preview of the much greater artistic achievement The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Four Rooms
rating: **
review: Unique collaborative effort that eventually led to the more successful Grindhouse, and as much as viewers tend to rag on Quentin Tarantino for doing it and thus spoiling his momentum, his segment is undeniably the best one and worthy of inclusion into his canon.

GoldenEye
rating: **
review: Pierce Brosnan's debut as Bond is a very good, though as far as I can tell, formulaic spin on the franchise.

Judge Dredd
rating: **
review: Sylvester Stallone attempts to make a movie out of an impossible proposition: basically a Western set in the future, with no awareness that this is exactly what it is.

Tommy Boy
rating: **
review: Chris Farley achieved stardom with this movie, but it's not exactly Blues Brothers.

Species
rating: **
review: These movies actually aren't terrible, but it's hard to make that argument seriously when they seem to go out of their way to be known first and foremost for nudity.

1995

Viewed/Ranked

1. Toy Story
2. Grumpier Old Men
3. The Quick and the Dead
4. Don Juan De Marco
5. Higher Learning
6. Desperado
7. The Usual Suspects
8. Braveheart
9. Mortal Kombat
10. Apollo 13
11. Nixon
12. Waterworld
13. Batman Forever
14. 12 Monkeys
15. Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
16. Dracula: Dead and Loving It
17. Dead Man Walking
18. Casino
19. Bad Boys
20. Mr. Holland's Opus
21. Othello
22. Four Rooms
23. GoldenEye
24. Judge Dredd
25. Tommy Boy
26. Species

Other Notable Releases

1. A Kid in King Arthur's Court
2. A Little Princess
3. The American President
4. Babe
5. The Basketball Diaries
6. Before Sunrise
7. The Bridges of Madison County
8. Clockers
9. Clueless
10. Congo
11. Crimson Tide
12. Cutthroat Island
13. Dangerous Minds
14. Die Hard: With a Vengeance
15. First Knight
16. Friday
17. Get Shorty
18. Heat
19. Jade
20. Jumanji
21. Kids
22. Leaving Las Vegas
23. Mallrats
24. Mighty Aphrodite
25. Money Train
26. Richard III
27. Rob Roy
28. Sense and Sensibility
29. Seven
30. Strange Days
31. To Die For
32. To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar
33. Village of the Damned
34. Waiting to Exhale
35. While You Were Sleeping
36. Wild Bill

Notes: Clockers, Cutthroat Island, First Knight, Mallrats, Rob Roy, and Wild Bill are all films that could be listed in the Viewed/Ranked section, but I've reserved because I would need to see them again to have a proper appreciation.  It strikes me that 1995 was an exceptional year, and a crucial one.  I could write a lot more about that.