Heat: Critic Reviews

As Heat progresses, its sensational looks pale beside storytelling weaknesses that expose the more soulless aspects of this cat-and-mouse crime tale.

For a film that deserves Oscars for photography, editing, sound and arguably scoring, Heat is packed with unforgettable subcharacters.

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.

If there's one thing Michael Mann knows how to do, it's create tension.

Michael Mann's writing and direction elevate this material. It's not just an action picture.

Heat occupies an exalted position among the countless contemporary crime films.

Heat generates lots of energy but gives off little light.

The cop/ crime stuff that makes up the bulk of the movie is well thought out and well directed.

All the squealing tires, flying bullets and falling bodies cannot save Heat from drowning in its own banalities ...

... a colossal disappointment.

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.

Robert De Niro's last great role before he devoted himself to self-parody.

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.

A stealth epic, framing an urban jungle and making its own kind of contemporary history by pairing acting giants Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino in what has arguably become the preminent cops-and-robbers movie. [Blu-ray]

Quite rightly, this confirmed Mann as one of Hollywood's smartest, most stylish and emotionally articulate directors.

I have always wondered if Pacino and De Niro flipped a coin before the movie began shooting to see which of them would play which part?

A slow-moving, overburdened, well-meant and at times quite entertaining slog.

The director's signature sleek and romantic aesthetic is reason enough to take a seat for this operatic three-hour marathon.

Fascinante por se concentrar em dois homens que, obcecados por suas profissoes, acabam dependendo um do outro justamente por nao saberem fazer outra coisa.

I admire Mann's emotional commitment and his sense of style, but it also grates on me.

This is simply the best American crime movie -- and indeed, one of the finest movies, period -- in over a decade.

With De Niro and Pacino in excellent form, Mann's Heat ignites the screen.

De Niro delivers a frightening vision of frosty criminal efficiency.

It is a remarkably powerful, entertaining and invigorating piece of cinema that hits on more levels than seemingly possible.

Heat Heat has an intoxicating, seductive look and feel, and if viewers can check their brains at the door, it succeeds on a surface level.