听 Two of cinema's greatest icons go head-to-head in Michael Mann's "luxurious" crime thriller Heat. Robert De Niro plays a ruthless career thief and Al Pacino is the obsessive cop who will stop at nothing to take him down. Despite an epic run time, critics and moviegoers found themselves on the edge of their seats when this debuted in 1995. Ten years later comes this Special Edition release.
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A sprawling 'making of' documentary is presented in three riveting parts. True Crime introduces cop-turned-technical-advisor Chuck Adamson who's also the basis for Pacino's character Vincent Hanna. He tells the tale that first inspired Michael Mann: a meeting in a coffee shop with sharp-witted bank robber Neil McCauley. "What struck me was Chuck's sociopathic perspective on it," says Mann, which leads nicely to a look at character development in Crime Stories.
When he sat down to write the script, Mann wanted to get away from 2-D portrayals of good guys and bad guys in favour of "a duality" that means both Hanna and McCauley elicit sympathy in spite of being deeply flawed. There's lots of backstory here, like Pacino's decision to make Hanna a cocaine addict (which is never referenced in the film). "I thought I would need to be a little more hyper," he explains. Any excuse for a bit of showboating, eh Al?
De Niro has less to say for himself but in archive interviews reveals that it was the famous coffee shop scene that attracted him to the project. Little did he know that he'd be sipping java with real-life crooks and cops as part of very in-depth research into the criminal underworld. In the last part of the documentary, Into The Fire, Val Kilmer confesses, "Everything we did in this movie - short of actual murder - we did off-camera." That included learning how to shoot a real gun from soldier-turned-writer Andy McNab (who appears in silhouette). "I've never done it with real bullets before!" says an excitable Pacino.
Black, No Sugar...
Undoubtedly the coffee shop conversation between Hanna and McCauley is the most memorable scene of the film and justly gets its own featurette. Mann recalls, "I couldn't wait to do it, and Bobby couldn't wait to do it, and Al couldn't wait to do it!" A lot of preparation went into this ostensibly simple set-up, with Mann monitoring various cameras to ensure that he captured every nuance. He talks more about this in a brooding commentary that clearly shows just how intimately he knows his characters. Not only for this scene but for every beat of the story, he takes us inside their heads and explains their thoughts and motives.
11 deleted scenes afford Tom Sizemore a little more screen time as the sloppy Cheritto, but once again the two leads steal the show. Gems include Pacino's brief treatise on the matter of air pollution as it relates to "bovine flatulence" and a bleeding De Niro threatening his doctor with the line, "I'm double the worst trouble you ever had!" Only De Niro (and possibly Arnold Schwarzenegger) could get away with such a clanger!
Finally, Return To The Scene Of The Crime revisits some of the locations Mann used to create his eclectic vision of LA. And yes, the coffee shop does get a plug! It's fluffier than the rest of the bonus features, but this Special Edition package is a hot property nonetheless.
EXTRA FEATURES
DISC ONEDISC TWO
