Of course Pacino vs. De Niro is this fucking thrilling…

Heat immediately becomes one of my favorite crime films, up there with the best of Scorsese and Coppola. While its action is incredibly gripping, like all of my favorite crime films, it's actually the melancholic undercurrent that remains the most searing. I loved all of the domestic relationships in the film, particularly how each partner was utilized to show a different dimension of the morals in this dual story of detectives and criminals. It's this investigation into morality that interests me the most here. How are these two men, supposedly on opposite ends of the spectrum, ultimately so similar? Pacino and De Niro are giving two vastly different performances, yet we can't help but feel like a simple diner conversation is a perfect meeting as it transcends these two characters into some greater unity: the legacy of the movie star.

Unlike most action films that feel desensitized in their real-life ramifications, the violence here is used quite sparingly over the nearly 3-hour runtime, and when it's employed, it's used to tremendous effect. Some sequences play really uncomfortably from a contemporary American perspective, but it's a testament to Mann's filmmaking to portray something that feels so grounded in its plot style, but somehow almost operatic within in its web of characters. As strong as the two leads are, it's the work of the tremendous ensemble that elevates Heat to its epic stature.

Seeing Heat in theaters was one of my favorite cinema experiences in a long time. Without the audience around me, I don't know that I would have laughed so much or discovered so much humor. I don't know that I would have noticed both myself and the stranger beside me leaning out of our chairs in the film's final few minutes. I felt the urge to applaud afterward as my two earlier screenings had each ended this way. But after a few moments of silence and the soft return of audience chatter, I realized that watching Heat, we had all been applauding to ourselves throughout the entire picture.