RR #8: Heat (1995) Dir. Michael Mann.

Feat. Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Tom Sizemore, Amy Brenneman, Natalie Portman, Kevin Gage, Danny Trejo, Henry Rollins, Hank Azaria, Tom Noonan, Dennis Haysbert

DeNiro’s words to unlive, or not live, by: “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”

Before we get into just how bleak DeNiro’s character’s outlook on life is, let’s talk about 3 things that have to do with Michael Mann’s 1995 crime masterpiece Heat, which if released the year before or after would have won a shitload of Oscars.

Instead, it went head-to-head with the awful Forrest Gump and the still-excellent Pulp Fiction. That Gump won over Fiction or Heat is one of the Academy’s all-time mistakes, (though they make numerous ones each and every year).

I. Do weapons drill sergeants @ Fort Bragg really show the scene of Val Kilmer reloading to show fresh recruits how it is done?

For years there has been a persistent rumour (one not denied one iota by Michael Mann, a rumour actively pushed by him) that drills & weapons sergeants @ Fort Bragg show the following clip from Michael Mann’s 1995 suspense-thriller masterpiece, Heat, to new recruits.

“90% of you,” these drill sergeants allegedly bawl. “WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RELOAD FASTER THAN THIS HERE HOLLYWOOD ACTOR!”

Can you imagine?

Silence in the dorm at Fort Bragg while all privates stand at attention. In walks a commanding officer, his shoes polished to perfection. Each step echoes off the wooden walls of the structure.

“TODAY, YOU MAGGOTS WILL BE WATCHING A FORTY-SECOND CLIP FROM THE 1995 FILM HEAT! AND 90% OF YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RELOAD FASTER THAN THIS PANSYASS HOLLYWOOD ACTOR WHO TOOK ONE…THAT’S ONE…8 WEEK WEAPONS TRAINING COURSE.”

Here’s a better video. Just watch the part from 0:44-0:50, I’ve tried to timestamp it for you so that it starts at 0:40:

Now, from 0:37 seconds to 0:45 seconds Val’s character is laying down suppressive fire in both directions, until 0:45, when the last round leaves the chamber of his automatic machine gun. Kilmer is so well trained at this point (or perhaps it’s his character, Chris Shiherlis), they can either feel the difference from the lightness of the gun as it empties which one the final shot is even before they take it, or perhaps the last bullet in a clip makes a unique sound of it own, because right at 0:45, without even having time to think, he ducks for cover, takes a fresh clip, pops it into place, that unique “click” sound meaning the new clip has been properly inserted, but Kilmer checks one last time for proper insertion by banging his open palm against the bottom of the clip and by 0:50 has immediately resumed laying down intense covering fire. He is out of the game for five extremely short-feeling seconds. Especially if you’re the cops down by the bridge, armed with nothing but service pistols. To them, it probably seemed like the hail of bullets never stopped.

DeNiro and Kilmer make their way up the street in the same direction, covering for each other with suppressive fire. Tom Sizemore, unfortunately, is on his own at this point. He won’t make it.

Suppressive, or covering fire, is not meant to actually “hit” the enemy so much as make them hide and duck while you move and plan your getaway. This is why Kilmer and DeNiro are moving slowly up the same street, in the same direction, to that grocery store, where DeNiro is able to get an injured Kilmer into a stolen vehicle, with the bags of money, and drive off.

Just how in the hell they drove off with the back completely open like that…without being seen by the army of surrounding cops, confuses me. I guwaa DeNiro was onPlan Z at this point.

ANYWAY: True or False? Is Kilmer’s reload shown as an example of how to reload at United States Military Training Facilities.

True.

Initiates at Fort Bragg are indeed shown the footage of Kilmer reloading and shooting. It saves the United States Military money having to shoot their own film. And good luck creating an atmosphere as heavy and frightening and suspenseful as the shootout in Heat. The ungodly clamour of those machine guns alone echoing off the skyscrapers as if they are canyon walls would be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate. It’s the sound that makes the scene so intense. It is so much louder than the rest of the film, and with good reason. The rest of the film is mainly humans speaking. Tis shootout is nothing but metal on metal and clips hitting the street. It’s a moder-day Western shootout.

So, yes. Mann has never been nominated for an Academy Award. But this Kilmer thing almost seems better somehow. Not for the reason that it might turn United States soldiers into killing machines, but because it shows how realistic a movie Mann made. Mann made. Huh. Man made.

Anyway, two other things about Heat. One of which has to do with a woman. Female characters have little else to do in Heat but worry about their husbands. Have you seen this deleted scene where Tom Sizemore, after buying the hockey masks we see in the very first heist, goes home so preoccupied with his upcoming job, cannot hear a word his wife says? 7:27 of the deleted scenes below, but press play anyway to see if my timestamp skills have improved. I imagine that female actor was pissed to be cut from a film of this calibre. I would be.

II. Ashley Judd’s Goodbye Forever Swipe

Ashley Judd’s brilliant body language when the police are waiting for her boyfriend (Chris Shiherlis) is a master class of surreptitious signalling. The facial expression, first of love, then of pity, then warning of impending danger. And she is listening to the radio transmissions in her room. She doesn’t asks to go to the balcony at just the right time and spot her love below out of sheer dumb Hollywood luck. A man fitting her boyfriend description is in the area at their pre-arranged time. She spots him first.

He spots her too. He smiles up at her. He loves her. The dumb degenerate gambler loves her. Look at those teeth. Years from now future archaeologists will dig up Kilmer’s teeth and conclude that he was twenty feet tall.

But with a single, swift swipe of the balcony railing, as if swiping it clean from drops of rain or, more appropriately, swiping it clean for a new life. But life without each other. I could only find a compilation video with decent quality, so double click the video below.

I think I have the time stamp correct, the 3 minute mark is where you need to go to get the full weight of the scene. Well, you need to watch the whole movie to get the full weight, but I imagine you wouldn’t be here if you haven’t seen Heat. That would be Sizemore using a Whizzinator stupid.

Point is, this is Judd’s only chance to really act in this movie. Judd losing her special little fuck up forever.

Her classic “sweep move” comes just @ 3:28, and as Kilmer understands what it means, he is actually off balance as he turns around, in total shock, having lost her forever. Judd’s face is emotionless as she waits to hear if her bf got away. But inside you know she’s just…screaming.

When Kilmer gets stopped, he simply shows one of his 38123 fake ID’s and when the street cops tell the detective in charge in Judd’s apartment it’s not the right guy, he simply sighs and says “then let him go,” and Judd just imperceptibly breaths a sigh a relief.

Accepting the coffee too is another master stroke, because to decline a cup might make a perceptive detective think that Judd no longer needed to stay mentally sharp, that maybe the guy they let go was her man, and a chase would begin.

Kilmer’s Chris Shiherlis a bank robber, not a getaway driver. It would take some luck for him to outrun the cops on streets crawling with LAPD.

III. DeNiro v. Pacino

I used to think that Pacino mopped the floor with DeNiro with this scene. At Mann’s insistence, they did not rehearse it. They did 12 takes of the scene and used most of the 11th take. About 90% of the 11th take is in the final cut.

I talked to my Mum about it last week and she made some great points. For a cop too busy to even go home, why is Pacino’s hair coiffed so finely and perfectly?

Another thing I didn’t notice the first time: DeNiro doesn’t give up any information unless it a mirror of info Pacino has given up.

Pacino tells him about bad dreams he has of bloated corpses.

“Do they say anything?” DeNiro wants to know. (A rat is still a rat, even in the afterlife.)

So then DeNiro tells Pacino of his drowning dream.

Pacino says his marriage is falling apart.

DeNiro admits to having a woman. He doesn’t say more though, not whether the relationship is good or bad. Just that he’s not a monk. The “monk” comment was meant to needle DeNiro. Didn’t work. His casual “I got a woman” gives you the sense he could walk into a gay bar and come out holding hands with the one woman bartender who works there.

Pacino volunteers way more information throughout the coffee scene than DeNiro does. Far more. This is interesting for a man who is an ostensibly skilled interrogator. He knew the Bad Cop routine wouldn’t work so he reaches instead for the classic American “my life is fucked, here’s how” banter. Tries to draw DeNiro out that was

Pacino: So you never wanted a regular-type life?
DeNiro (looking disgusted): What the fuck is that, barbecue and ball games?
Pacino (sarcastic now cuz he knows just how dumb this idyllic American life sounds to both of them): Yeah!
DeNiro: This regular-type life, is this your life?
Pacino (scoffs): No. No. My life is a disaster zone.

His stepdaughter is fucked up cuz her real father is an S.O.B.
He’s on the downslope of a marriage (“my third” Pacino is quick to add) “because I spend all my time chasing guys like you around. That’s my life.”

When DeNiro gives his “30 seconds” speech, even Pacino is surprised at its brutal efficiency. “That’s pretty vacant.”

DeNiro: It is what it is. It’s that or we better both better go do somethin’ else, pal.
Pacino: I don’t know how to do anything else.
DeNiro: Neither do I
Pacino: I don’t much want to either
DeNiro: Neither do I

A ghost of a smile in both men’s eyes. The smiles do not reach their faces.

Now, this is the only moment of true warmth between the two men. Immediately afterward Pacino reverts to cop and says with the usual unreserved bravado.

Pacino: We're sitting here like a coupla regular fellas. You do what you do. I do what I gotta do. What happens if I am there and I got to put you away?

DeNiro: There's a flip side to that coin. What if you got me boxed in and I gotta put you down? (beat) 'Cause no matter what, you will not get in my way. (beat) We’ve been face to face…yeah. But I won't hesitate. Not for a second.

..and they leave it at that. Of course until DeNiro spots Pacino coming around that corner at LAX.

Infuriatingly for me, as a viewer, the only reason DeNiro and Eeady don’t end up on that tropical island is because DeNiro breaks his own 30-second rule. He can’t walk away from his beef with Waingro. Waingro is a dipshit who got too power hungry with a trigger and he used it. So what? Why let that man ruin the future you’vebeen building all your life?

But no. DeNiro first goes to see Trejo, the only possible source of information for the bank heist. Trejo is dead is all but name only. He begs for a coup de grace. DeNiro gives it to him.

Jon Voight, the fence character, never should have told DeNiro’s character where Waingro was. Not after the chartered plane from LAX was set up and all the paperwork was correct. DeNiro had a ticket to paradise with the woman he loved!

But no. He stupidly goes to Waingro’s hotel, kills him, and misses his chance for happiness.

Interestingly, if you time that scene with a stopwatch, or just watch the seconds, the time it takes from DeNiro to spot Pacino coming around that corner at Waingro’s hotel after DeNiro has killed him and run away with Eeady watching, confused, is exactly thirty seconds.

One last thought. If one must live by this rule:

Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.

You are not living. You are merely surviving. And the difference is fucking huge.

DeNiro is a modern ghost. What does he do with the money he makes? He evidently doesn’t enjoy it. So what’s the fucking point? At least Kilmer liked sports betting and Sizemore has a family and a drug habit on the side. DeNiro is the classic American invisible man. The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. He doesn’t even have a boat. What is he working for? He has no identifiable hobbies.

Like so many “individuals” under late capitalism, his work is his identity. He has to work. That sounds no different to me from socialism.

He goes to work because he has no inner life whatsoever.

And that, to me, is what makes him the truly tragic figure of Michael Mann’s Heat.