Chiasmus cult cinema trailers - "Heat" (1995). *These will be ongoing posts, courtesy of the A.Glass DVD collection. As I offer via Chiasmus Cult trailers, my summarized overviews*

Director and writer Michael Mann's, now classic and most definitely cult classic crime action thriller "Heat" (1995) would have to be up there as one of the top action movies of the 1990s.  Be it from its ambitious production magnitude, and the the large cast of actors, who all hold their own throughout the over two hour movie.  And of course particularly the two heavy weights, Al Pacino, who plays the extremely focused and intense police lieutenant "Vincent Hanna", assigned to track down Robert De Niro's character "Neil McCauley", in which Mann described the two characters to be of similar ilk, with driven flip-of-the-coin perspectives, and inevitable outcomes.  McCauley, the professional thief, who takes down large 'scores' in Los Angeles, and Hanna, who is solely driven to takedown McCauley.  Heat in its retrospective, is very much Mann's dichotomy and philosophical story of human characteristics, and drive, which manifest in us all, that being the shortness of time, and that desire to fulfill as much as one can within that snapshot of life.

Apparently the screenplay was written by Mann in 1979, after studying prisoners and how they perceive life behind bars, and introspection, as the mentioned philosophical reasons and even justifications for the crimes, reading from the prison library in a self educating way, at a time within the jail system of the late 1970s, political theory, theology, philosophy and Eastern religions such as Buddhism, to assist in their view of the world, and how to manage it, without falling to pieces, within the confines of four prison walls.   And what to do, when they're finally released, which in Robert De Niro's character "Neil McCauley" case, to commit more crimes to eventually have enough money to move away from America, and in the movie, to go to New Zealand.   Thus, admitting to Al Pacino's character ("Vincent Hanna"), in one of the most masterful filmed and scripted dialogues between these two great actors and lifelong friends (away from the movie), as they meet for coffee, Robert De Niro's character explains his nightmare is drowning in his sleep, and Hanna aware of what the career criminal is implying, knows it is about not having enough time, replying, "Enough time? To do what you wanna do?"   Based off actual events, with Hanna's character influenced by the late Chuck Adamson, who was a serving detective in the Chicago police, who chased down the actual Neil McCauley, a career criminal from Chicago, who held up an armour car, in similarity, and not just in name, loosely following the events in the movie.   

Heat, as mentioned is a multilayered human story, portraying the female characters in it, as ardently standing by their husbands, despite their obsession of racing against time in its wrecking ball manner, from the hunter, being Al Pacino's character, and the hunted Robert De Niro's "McCauley", as he eventually misplaces his protocols, and codes of detachment.  Aware that any deviation from the path, may have consequences, and it does.  As the main heist in the movie goes wrong, and turns into one of the most intense and well choreographed shootout scenes in cinema history.  McCauley, having already fallen in love with "Eady" (played by Amy Brenneman), who he met at a cafe/bookstore prior to the shootout, and then goes on a personal vendetta seeking revenge mission for the ones that double crossed him, and almost ends up home free, and able to convince a traumatized Eady to come with him, steers away from the path in a dramatic scene towards the end of the movie, seen as a metaphor on a road to an awaiting cargo plane, to kill the main snitch holed up in a hotel.  Moments later, he is then cornered on an airfield, by Hanna, as they both shoot it out, with Hanna eventually shooting McCauley, and in an incredibly powerful sequence, holds out his hand, for Hanna to hold, to which Hanna replicates in a tearful, and remorseful manner, as McCauley dies.  

Michael Man  would go onto say in an interview, after McCauley's crew is mostly killed leaving just McCauley, and his right hand man "Chris Shiherlis" played by the late Val Kilmer, that Shiherlis "postmodern" unstructured lifestyle, despite being loyal to McCauley, actually assisted in him escaping at the end of the movie, that dichotomy and lack of protocol, as way of contradiction, actually shows very little favour of who will win, and who will lose. 

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(A.Glass 2025)

All CHIAMUS Cult Cinema trailers/commentary to date: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/search/label/Chiasmus%20cult%20cinema