Such cool style and tone. Specialties of Michael Mann, who is a genius.
This movie never gets old.
What are some other films that just never get old—always a great watch?
I’ll start…with Jaws.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
shareGood cinematography and special effects, but the plot/script was so wildly outlandish . . . thtat's what Yellowstone reminded me of.
Not Deniro's &/or Pacino's best. Not even close.
What ‘special effects’?
What were the supposedly ‘wildly outlandish’ script elements?
Are you sure you’ve seen Heat?
It's been a while, but where to start?
Al Pacino who is investigating a high tech series of way too elaborate heists just happens to be the cop they call when a low level prostitute is killed in a motel room.
Pacino follows Deniro around in a helicopter and then the two of them have this intense cop and robber sit down. Yeah, right.
The scene near the end where they burn off at least a thousand rounds in full auto but barely did any mag swaps.
It's been a while…
Al Pacino who is investigating a high tech series of way too elaborate heists just happens to be the cop they call when a low level prostitute is killed in a motel room.
Pacino follows Deniro around in a helicopter and then the two of them have this intense cop and robber sit down. Yeah, right.
The scene near the end where they burn off at least a thousand rounds in full auto but barely did any mag swaps.
When Yellowstone came out, I found it to be slightly more implausible than Heat.
That's saying a lot.
Heat was superhero and villain comic book stuff.
Heat features no superheroes, it’s a gritty cops and robbers crime drama. It’s no less plausible than other examples of the genre 🤷🏻♂️
shareI guess we will have to agree to disagree.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Departed, however I thought that the shootout at or near the end was a bit over the top. But compared to the stuff in Heat, it was nothing. But that's just the way I felt about it. I think Pacino and Deniro are both great actors, and that is an understatement.
It’s not a matter of ‘disagreement’, you’re mistaken and I’m correcting you. Also, if you find The Departed, a highly stylised borderline farce, more credible than Heat then your antennae for detecting realism are simply broken.
shareThe cast of The Departed was generally made up of better actors and therefore probably did a better job of portraying realism. The Departed was loosely based on fact. Heat was pretty much good guys and ambiguous bad guys fantasy.
shareWrong again. Heat is based on real life criminal Neil McCauley (De Niro’s character uses the same name) who was tracked down by detective Chuck Adamson (changed to ‘Vincent Hanna’). The Departed is a remake of totally fabricated Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, with Whitey Bulger shoved into the events courtesy of Nicholson’s ‘Frank Costello’.
The Departed’s cast is excellent (though it’s debatable which film has the better cast - Heat has two acting titans, Departed has one, but a higher profile supporting cast) but they did not do ‘a better job of portraying realism’ because they were going for a more hammy, quippy, stylised approach.
The notion that The Departed - a deliberately absurd and farcical film - has more realism than Heat is itself absurd. You need to rewatch both of these films, sober this time.
That's interesting that you found The Departed to be "a deliberately absurd and farcical film." I didn't find it that way, and I have a hard time believing that it was ever intended as such. Totally just out of curiosity, how did you feel about "No Country . . ." and "The Counselor"?
I can get Heat free (right now) on AMC, but I would have to rent The Departed. I've watched The Departed quite a few times and Heat a few times. I guess I could watch Heat again some night when I am bored and don't feel like watching grass grow.
Thanks for the background on Heat. I'll try to read up some more on it.
The Departed is a great film but it’s a silly romp in which a cop goes undercover as a gangster while a gangster goes undercover as a cop and lots of crazy shenanigans ensue, it’s basically a Tarantino-esque comedy which deliberately trolls the audience by suddenly blowing the hero’s head off three quarters into the film, and has a literal rat crawl across the window frame as the final shot - now that really is ‘wildly outlandish’.
Heat, by contrast, is a meticulously researched deadly serious drama/thriller based on real people, it isn’t ‘wildly outlandish’ at all. So go ahead a rewatch it on AMC and correct your perspective.
If watching Heat is something for you to do when ‘bored’ as an alternative to ‘watching grass grow’ then it sounds like you have a low attention span, which would explain how you missed so many important details and mistook the film for being ‘wildly outlandish’.
‘No Country…’ and ‘The Counsellor’ are both great films, why do you ask?
"basically a Tarantino-esque comedy"
That's interesting. I didn't find it that way at all. It struck me as being intense, which, although I enjoyed it, "Pulp Fiction" did not come off as (for me).
I'll give "Heat" another watch; maybe knowing the background will help.
I asked about your opinion of "No Country . . ." and "The Counselor" because those are both films that, for various reasons, I can and have watched over and over again. I figured that if I thought highly of them you probably wouldn't.
There’s plenty of unrealistic content in those Cormac McCarthy films with Javier Bardem’s angel of death character, and leopards popping up throughout The Counsellor - you don’t consider these things ‘wildly outlandish’?
shareJavier Bardem did such a fantastically good job with his part in "No Country . . ." that I was able to overlook his extraordinary ability as a killer. (I hate to say it, but although I don't see him as the actor that either Pacino or Deniro are, I thought his acting in "No Country" was more gripping than the two a fore mentioned in "Heat.") Pretty much all of the actors grabbed me by the balls with the way they did their parts (and I am not a big Tommy Jones fan) and McCarthy's lines from the book came to life excellently in the movie. One of the few movies that I liked better than the book.
I guess that all of the above made "the Angel Of Death" aspect work for me. I see where you are going with that, however.
In The Counselor, I could live with the leopards as I saw them as just plausible representations of the excess that came with the cartel drug money.
But seriously, I will give Heat another watch, and I will say that I thought that the "Waynegro" (sp?) killer came off as realistic to me, and I did appreciate the way Fichtner did his part (but I like him in just about everything I've seen him in).
I'll quickly add, as related to the murder of the prostitute and Pacino being the investigating detective, that reminds me of Yellowstone, where no matter what happened, there was Chief Rainwater.
But that's all. Just the way it struck me.
I haven’t seen Yellowstone but in Heat Pacino does not appear at every crime, he only appears at some crimes that fall under his department 🤷🏻♂️
Sounds like you need to rewatch Heat.
I just saw it as too much of a convenient coincidence that Pacino would be called to one a murder at The No-Tell-Motel (and murders those places are probably relatively common) and this murder just happened to be tied in with the case he was investigating.
shareMann could have had some random detective handle the dead prozzy and tell Pacino, but he made the stronger choice of having Pacino do it so he can abandon his wife for work (again).
And again, it’s all under his department so it’s perfectly plausible.
I would have thought that a detective from the precinct where the prostitute was murdered would have been the first assigned to the case.
For some reason (I could be wrong) I wasn't getting the impression that the robbery-homicide(s ?) that Pacino was assigned to, at the time, happened in that p-art of LA.
I suppose that if there was an obvious link between a member of Deniro's gang & the prostitute murder, Pacino might have been alerted, but I didn't see it.
The forensics woman says ‘it’s a series and ending up in your court’ to Pacino.
There’s no reason to believe that Pacino shouldn’t have been called out, it’s not remotely implausible, and all of your assumptions have no basis.
Again, you need to rewatch the film and make sure you actually understand it before trying to criticise it.
Okay, I just did some speed reading using your some of your prior post as search engines. Maybe I'll give it another watch. It did very little for me the last few times, but maybe with what I've just learned, next time will be different.
shareThe Departed!
In my humble opinion
Die Hard
share