“I told you I’m never going back…”
-Last Lines, Heat
While it maybe be De Niro’s character, Neil McCauley saying that, it may as well be taken as De Niro’s commentary on his future career. After two decades of giving nuanced subtly both edge and pathos, depending on the character he played, De Niro seemed to lay it all out in Michael Mann’s truly iconic Heat. The movie ended up becoming one of those warmly reviewed but coldly received movies that sort of just got lost in the shuffle in 1995. While I wouldn’t levy all of De Niro’s career choices forward on this film alone, I’m sure it’s lack of awards and audience acclaim left him seeking a more commercial place in the spotlight. The Fan would come next, and between bombastic action or silly comedies like Analyze This and The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Deniro became less an actor and more a figurehead for what good acting used to be. He also became a producer, and from the late nineties onwards, his career choices have been driven more by the producer’s desire to make money rather than the actor’s need to make art. But enough of that, let’s focus on one of his great roles in one of the grandest films of the nineties, newly on Blu-ray from Warner Brothers.
Heat pits De Niro against Pacino, but not really. Not really in the sense that neither ever share a frame of film together. They have a scene where they are in the same room, but the shots never allow either a chance to converge. They aren’t pitted together, either, because ultimately Mann reveals both characters to essentially be the same. They are professionals so obsessed with their work that they cause harm to those they love the most. They live for the thrill of the chase, but when the race is over they can’t leave the sidelines. De Niro is professional robber Neil McCauley, while Pacino is driven lieutenant Vincent Hanna. Neil’s got a team of robbers, lead by Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer), and Pacino has a team of officers, lead by Sergeant Drucker (Mykelti Williamson). Neil’s seeing Eady (sweet Amy Brenneman) and Vincent’s married with a daughter (Natalie Portman in one of her first roles), but for both of them, their family are their colleagues. Their job is their life.
What Michael Mann does over the next three hours is completely pick apart the cops and robbers genre, removing it from the good guy/bad guy archetypes it had become to one that taps into the universal essence of being. It matters less that Pacino gets his man, and more that in getting his man he’s given up everything. More than that, the poetically heart-wrenching finale finds that he hasn’t stopped a bad guy, but he’s lost a friend. He’s lost a part of himself. The supporting cast is terrific, the score, comprised of some beautiful steely ambient tracks from Brian Eno and a show stopping finale from the Kronos Quartet, is sublime, and the action scenes are just as intense as the dramatic ones. Like a De Niro performance in its prime, the film is both riling and understated, tense and contemplative, visceral and poetic. It came from a time when everyone was re-writing history, from Kevin Costner with Dances with Wolves to Clint Eastwood with Unforgiven, but there’s no question that Michael Mann re-wrote it best. Heat’s a film that burns brighter each and every year, and one of the true contemporary classics.presentation...
After being one of the most ubiquitous DVDs of its time as a snapper cased budget title, Heat finally made the leap to the big leagues a couple years ago with a packed two disc special edition. Presentation wise, the DVDs were hardly different. The special edition had a slightly squeezed aspect ratio and at times slightly sharper picture because of the higher peaks in the bitrate, but overall the differences were negligible. Color timing was still the same and detail wasn’t at its best. This Blu-ray is an improvement in both detail and color timing, with details like the pores on skin or threads on a jacket now visible. While there is still noticeable grain from time to time, this is more a stylistic choice and less a fault of the transfer. Color has been corrected in most scenes, too, restoring a slightly colder hue that fits with the theme of detachment the film weaves so exquisitely. This Blu-ray is noticeably darker in scenes, which is odd considering most Blu-rays open up the contrast range, but given Mann is a perfectionist when it comes to overseeing the visuals of his films on DVD, I wouldn’t doubt he was behind that change. Overall, a decent upgrade compared to the previous DVD, but still not quite reference quality.
Heat blazes in a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track, and it sounds great. Really full and almost organic at how the sound effects and all of the ambient musical tonalities come out bleeding from each speaker. It’s mostly subtle, but the big heist sequences certainly pack a punch too. The end sequence, with the airplanes flying by, makes a significant impact in TrueHD. A very strong upgrade.
extras...
The first extra bullet lists “New Content Changes Supervised by Director Michael Mann”, but by the looks of it, he didn’t have to supervise all that much. The extras are essentially identical to the previous two-disc DVD. Considering how packed that set was, though, I’m not really complaining. First is a commentary with Michael Mann. It’s got a lot of dead space in it, (and how could it not at 170 minutes?) but Mann still does expunge a lot of good detail about character and his overall director’s intent.
There are 11 additional scenes included, running just under10 minutes total. Some scenes are just a few collections of Pacino one liners, while most others are longer scenes with supporting characters like Tom Sizemore or Danny Trejo that add to the story but aren’t essential to the narrative. They are all presented interlaced and full screen letterboxed.
The meat of the extras are the five featurettes that run close to an hour and a half total. Each deconstructs a different facet of the film, and the people behind these must be commended for assembling so much of both the cast and the crew. Almost all the actors have come back again to speak, save for De Niro who participates via a 1995 interview. What’s great is that all the crew, from the first assistant director to the sound mixer, are back to talk about their recollections of the film. You can tell this was an important film and a passion project for so many because everyone has such vivid recollections of Michael’s vision and the awestruck moments that happened throughout the production.
Breaking it all down, here’s how the featurettes are brought together:
The first three featurettes are grouped together with an optional play all function. The first is “True Crime” (14:45) which talk about the real life cop and criminal who inspired Vincent and Neil in the film. The second is “Crime Stories” (20:25) where the actors reflect on their impressions of the story, Michael Mann talks about trying to add dimension to stock characters and how it had its genesis as the television pilot for L.A. Takedown. Of the three “Into the Fire” (23:52) is the best, talking about the actual production, including the heist sequence and the training that had to be done, rife with footage of De Niro firing real bullets on the gun range.
Curiously the other two featurettes, done in the similarly intertwined recollections fashion, are included on their own. The standout is naturally “Pacino and De Niro: The Conversation” (9:54) where actors, producers, a critic and Michael Mann all reflect on the magic that was the first scene where Pacino and De Niro share the same scene. They talk about first the actual effect the meeting has in the final film, and then later reveal how it was accomplished and just how professional both actors were in pulling the whole thing off. The second bit, “Return to the Scene of the Crime” (12:12) has the location manager and the associate producer returning to all the locations in the film, including the final scene at the LAX airport, explaining how the locations were, why Michael Mann wanted it and whether or not it would be possible to film there today.
Heat is such an important and epic picture, it’s wonderful that Warner treated it as such with its extras, avoiding any facet of promotion and instead zeroing in on the material as if it were a full class on film. The biggest surprise for me was just how eloquent everyone was in describing themes and interpretations from the film. Ashley Judd and Jon Voight in particular really come off as quite insightful and intelligent.
Rounding off the extras are the three trailers that were found on the original DVD, and ones that are nearly as iconic as the picture itself. The “Two Actors Collide” trailer has always been a favorite, and even in its short timeframe, evokes such an incredible, even nostalgic, mood.
wrapping it up...
Heat is a sprawling 170-minute character study masked as an L.A. crime picture. It’s Michael Mann’s ability to capture both the big picture and the small moments sometimes together at the same time that makes the picture such a touching and enthralling rarity in cinema. This is one of the rare movies where I’ll occasionally just fire up the ending and find myself floored nearly to tears at the beautiful tragedy that Mann creates. It’s one of a kind, and with a powerful presentation and hours of truly worthy featurettes, deleted scenes and commentary, Heat’s a movie everyone should warm to. Whether you get this Blu-ray or the supplementally same DVD, this is an essential purchase.
 | overall... Content: A Video: B+ Audio: A- Extras: A- Final Grade: A |
