Noir
There’s lots of talk about this film but I don't often see people discuss what I think is one of its main appeals - it’s a great film noir. As well as the moral ambiguity and somewhat tragic ending, visually the film bathes you in night-time L.A. for 3 hours, with steely lighting much like Terminator 2.
The texture in that shot of De Niro coming home and staring at the waves is hypnotic, capturing loneliness, emptiness, isolation, serenity, and the score recalling Blade Runner’s dreamy, cold synth sound. A world steeped in technology where humans are as dislocated as a few disparate ants in a computer.
This cold neo-noir world is about to feel the ‘Heat’ as Pacino’s Hanna is coming for his prey.