Paramount Film Notes: Heat

Come see Heat with us at the Paramount Theatre Saturday, May 27.

In 1995, when Heat was released, audiences had been primed for an explosive showdown between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Although both actors had appeared in The Godfather Part II, they never shared a scene together, leaving audiences hungry for a movie where these acting titans would finally face off. It was even heavily featured in the film's marketing, with the trailer saying, "Now, for the first time, Academy Award-winner Al Pacino and Academy Award-winner Robert De Niro collide." On release, some audiences were disappointed that the two actors only share a scant two scenes together, with most of the film lingering on various subplots and individual character studies. But while that initial disappointment may have soured the film's release for some, with the benefit of 25+ years of hindsight (and a few more movies starring both De Niro and Pacino), we can see that the beauty of Heat comes from its expansive cast of characters and ambitious designs.

The script for Heat was originally written as a television pilot following the success of director Michael Mann's work on Miami Vice. The pilot, L.A. Takedown, shares enough similarities with Heat that it's arguably fair to call the latter a remake; Mann was finally given enough time, money, and star power to get across what he always wanted to do with his ambitious story of a cat-and-mouse game between a meticulous crook and an unbalanced cop. As he told the BBC, ‘L.A. Takedown,’ to me, constitutes something that I’d like to do actually on every film, which is get a chance to shoot a prototype — to learn what’s wrong and play around with it."

What's ironic is that what makes Heat so memorable while L.A. Takedown has largely been forgotten is the many diversions that Mann takes along the way. He packs in enough story for an entire season of television, letting the camera and the story's focus wander through the city all while keeping the same disciplined visual style that his fans adore. In doing so, Heat becomes so much more than Pacino and De Niro's diner scene, and so much more than a cop and crook breathing new life into the cliche, "We're not so different, you and I."