Heat 1995

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: When Pacino's loud, bruised cop and De Niro's canny crook stare at each other, you can read something spent and weary in their eyes and voices. The heat is hell. So are their jobs -- but somebody's got to do them. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Michael Mann and a superlative cast have taken a classic heist movie rife with familiar genre elements and turned it into a sleek, accomplished piece of work, meticulously controlled and completely involving. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: There isn't much going on at this party other than what the actors bring to it. But fortunately, Mann has invited some exceptional ones. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: So why doesn't Heat, with its elaborately staged, tautly edited robberies, its killer cast, edgy score and elegant cinematography, offer more satisfaction? It's the script, stupid. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Heat becomes consistently more interesting as it forges on toward the 180-minute mark. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: All this adds good weight and tension to the movie and provides a lot of very good actors with the opportunity to do honest, probing work in a context where, typically, less will do. Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Boosters and touts use the term 'major movie' so often that it's more likely to generate yawns than excitement at this point. Back to basics. Heat is a major movie. With major stars. Doing major acting. Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: As Heat progresses, its sensational looks pale beside storytelling weaknesses that expose the more soulless aspects of this cat-and-mouse crime tale. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: There's nothing really new in this lengthy 1995 thriller by writer-director Michael Mann about cops and robbers in Los Angeles, but it has craft, pacing, and an overall sense of proportion, three pretty rare classic virtues nowadays. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Heat is an ''epic'' that feels like a stunt. Read more

David Ansen, Newsweek: Just when it seemed that the only hope for crime movies lay in the postmodernist artifice of films like Pulp Fiction, Mann reinvests the genre with brooding, modernist conviction. This one sticks to your gut. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: The taciturn De Niro and the braying Pacino share a flawless scene over a cup of coffee, but the real honors go to Val Kilmer and Ashley Judd as a warring, loving couple. Read more

Dave Kehr, New York Daily News: An odd though often entertaining blend of The Asphalt Jungle and Oprah, a traditional cops-and-robbers story weirdly fitted out with long, earnest discussions of interpersonal relationships. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: ... a colossal disappointment. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Michael Mann's writing and direction elevate this material. It's not just an action picture. Read more

Andrew Ross, Salon.com: All the squealing tires, flying bullets and falling bodies cannot save Heat from drowning in its own banalities. Read more

Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle: This is the first time De Niro and Pacino have acted together, and each gives a strong, watertight performance. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: This is simply the best American crime movie -- and indeed, one of the finest movies, period -- in over a decade. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Heat occupies an exalted position among the countless contemporary crime films. Read more

Hal Hinson, Washington Post: If there's one thing Michael Mann knows how to do, it's create tension. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: As with his other works, [Mann] binds sound, music and pictures into one hypnotic triaxial cable and plugs it right into your brain. He makes this almost-three-hour experience practically glide by. Read more