I think they rank among the best action scenes in any movie of recent years. In the immediate aftermath of the heist are found the best action sequences in the entire film. "Heat" abounds with fantastic action scenes, culminating in a bank heist and shootout between Neil McCauley's gang of bank robbers and Vincent Hanna's squad of police detectives. With its two superstar co-lead actors (Pacino and De Niro), and an equally outstanding supporting cast that includes Diane Venora, Tom Sizemore, Natalie Portman, and Val Kilmer, this movie provides nearly three hours of spine-tingling suspense and superb action. Now newly reissued in a “Director’s Cut” edition on Blu-ray, this the story of Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), and Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro), two charismatic men on opposite sides of the law. 35 people found this helpfulīilled as "A Los Angeles Crime Saga," "Heat" is one of the finest crime dramas ever to come out of Hollywood. After hearing how great this movie was, I found little to second that vote. This type of movie cannot stand alone without extremely good character development and more energetic and interesting scenes. Overall, the emotional tone is surprisingly flat and dreary for far too much of the movie I had the impression this was supposed to contribute to a cool, serious tone to make characters and simple scenes, like long stretches of a guy walking or waiting, seem more important than they actually were. A bad guy among thieves is a killer of prostitutes, which I found pointless as it served to make us hate him more, but did so uncreatively.
And then we have the cliche dedicated cop whose work focus drives a wedge through his marriage. Character development is barely beyond adequate a few good character scenes don't make up for the many that aren't. It's a guy's movie - flat out the women are all dependent on their men or needy.
This movie may have worked almost two decades ago, but even then, it wouldn't have appealed to everyone.