Heat [DVD] [1995]

classic movie

Brilliant film and quick delivery

There are luxuries in life and there are necessities… Heat on Blu-ray is a necessity.If you are here reading reviews for this, stop now and just buy it, you will absolutely not regret this purchase.I know this is in a lot of people’s top 10 movies so to have it on Blu-ray is a must, especially the gun fight scene, imagine just how that sounds and looks in this quality, it will never be this good from any streaming service.

Heat is written and directed by Michael Mann. It stars Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora, Ashley Judd, Amy Brennerman and Danny Trejo. Music is scored by Elliot Goldenthal and cinematography by Dante Spinoti.Big time thief Neil McCauley (DeNiro) is after one last major score before he retires, but hot on his tail is Vincent Hannah (Pacino), a cop equally and methodically as driven as he is himself.In the build up to Heat's release, much was made of it being the first on screen pairing of DeNiro and Pacino. A mouthwatering prospect for sure, it proved to be worth the wait and unfolds as a lesson in restrained acting with two modern greats affording each other the respect that was due. What we didn't realise in the build up to the film's release, was that it would prove to be one of the greatest cops and robbers movies of all time, brought to us by an auteur director whose kink for realism and commitment to research stands him out from much of the modern directing pack.Rarely does a film come together as one, where all the cogs of the engine are in tune, but Heat is one such picture. From cast performances to visual aesthetics, to screenplay and actual substance of story, Heat is as meticulous as it is thrilling. There are a myriad of characters brilliantly stitched together in one de-glamorised City of Angels, as plot develops, and each character and their crumbling relationships come under inspection, we are witnessing a coarse viewpoint of human nature, where people's lives are ended or defined by their choices. Everywhere you look, here, there are folk cracking under the strain of being exposed to high end crime, dreams, hopes and happiness are unlikely to be achieved, and this is on both sides of the law.For Heat, Mann fuses the tonal and visual ticks of Manhunter with that of the adrenalin rushes from Last of the Mohicans, with the former gorgeously born out by Spinoti's pin sharp photography, the latter thrillingly realised by Mann's skill at action set pieces. Once again word of mouth about the key heist and shoot out in the film led to high expectation, and again there is no disappointment. L.A. becomes a battle ground, rapid gunfire punctures the air, cars swerve and crash, bodies fall, visually and aurally it drags you to the edge of your seat, an extended action sequence fit to sit with the best of them. The kicker as well is that because Mann has been so detailed in his characterisations, we care about what happens to all parties, we understand motives and means. Which in a film with such a huge support cast is quite an achievement.There is enough in Heat to fill out a dozen other cops and robbers films, fans of neo-noir and crime films in general are spoilt supreme here. It's not rocket science really, put a group of great actors together, give them an intelligent script to work from and let them be guided by a director who will not sit still, and you get a great film. Heat, the ultimate predator and prey movie, where from beginning to end it refuses to be lazy or cop out, and energy and thought seeps from every frame. 10/10

Having watched Heat more times than I care to remember, due to it being my favourite movie of all time, its release on Blu-ray was my first must-have purchase for the format. And it didn't disappoint; if anything the Blu-ray delivery is in some ways a re-release, because the sheer beauty and technical magnificence of Heat has been reawoken.Seeing it as sharp and crisp as possible on Blu-ray was as close to being able to watch it again as a first-timer - breathtaking. Some movies just don't upscale well; upgrading them to a near-perfect format either exposes faults that were smudged out by the lower-res picturing of VHS or a less than impressive DVD transfer, or the film just doesn't stand up to the kind of intensity required, a better format not necessarily equaling greater enjoyment. Heat, however, is not one of these films.If anything, Mann's epic neo-noir love letter to LA and its brooding electric light of night is arguably the perfect film for the Blu-ray format. The contrast of colour-to-black is genuinely stunning, almost as if the film was made with today's technology (rather than fifteen years ago), and the film serves up even more, now adding its subtleties to any already solid blend of brilliant direction, casting, performance and writing. Like the recent fanfare surrounding the Beatles' remastering, I would argue that Heat reaching Blu-ray is the motion picture equivalent: an already brilliant piece of film-making simply gets deeper and more compelling, proves even more confounding such is its perfection.My one criticism (and the reason this Blu-ray came in on four stars and not five) is that I too had to play around with the sound before I could get a decent balance between dialogue and effects. Fiddling with the balance between my stereo TV and an additional amplifier and stereo speakers was okay eventually, but it would appear that this Blu-ray was single-mindedly balanced for multi-speaker viewing. Which is a bit of a shame, and may impair some people's enjoyment.PS: There was some concern on the internet pre-release that several minutes had been excised. I can confirm that it hasn't; or if it has (and I was keeping a cautionary eye out) I genuinely didn't notice.