I caught up with the 1995 Michael Mann film Heat for the first time last night. (It was a cheap hire on Google.) While it was sort of amusing watching Al Pacino play a cop who seemed potentially more dangerous (and nuttier) than criminal mastermind Robert De Niro, I don't think the film had all that much going for it. One big shoot out on the streets of LA isn't enough. That bank heist before it seemed way, way too easy. A lot of the dialogue was hard to follow - you more or less just had to hope that it would become clearer in the next scene what they had been talking about in the one before. My son said it reminded him a lot of playing Grand Theft Auto, and I think he is right.
Anyway, not the pits, but not that great either.
A few weeks ago, we watched Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Technically well made, with the long, long single tracking shots; its basic theme of "you have to be nuts to want to be actor" is a tad self indulgent in just the right way to win critics' praise and Oscars, but is not of that much interest to the rest of us. And does Edward Norton ever get to play a normal human?
Again, not the pits, but...etc.
I'm finding it a bit difficult, lately, to find streaming service movies which have I have missed and really like when I do get to watch them.
1 comment:
Great cinematography but a badly flawed film this "Heat." The experienced cop is supposed to be streetwise and insists "let him walk." Ridiculous. Stick him away on any true charge you can. Wanting to catch him out on a bigger crime means accepting more victims. So pretty crazy stuff really. And why does Al Pacino want to talk to the bad guy? It would be like me talking to head terrorist Netanyahu. There is nothing to talk about. No agreement to be made.
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