BEST AND WORST REMAKES: BEST #3 – HEAT

Before he became a sidekick to Zac Efron and trying to bang April Ludgate, there was a time when Robert De Niro’s attachment to a project meant we’d be witnessing a character. Not a half-measured role that falls somewhere between a forced stereotype, the screenwriter’s dialogue, and the actor’s own personality, but a man that has his own depths and honest reactions; someone that allows us to study the Other while reflecting on what makes our own selves tick. His character in Heat (Neil McCauley) is one in a pantheon of De Niro characters that exemplifies that definition. But then again, everything about Heat is a definition in cinematic excellence to begin with.

Heat was born of failure. It originated as a low-rated TV movie called L.A. Takedown, itself edited together from a failed TV pilot, and it would eventually come full-circle again as “Robbery Homicide Division” (a TV show starring my former employer that lasted less than a season). Heat’s plot comes from the true story of De Niro’s character who led a family-band of thieves in Chicago during the ‘60s. They were methodical, calculating and smart, with no compunction to walk away from a job if they even “felt” the presence of the police close by. The detective played by Al Pacino is based verbatim on the investigator who pursued McCauley to the bitter end.

It pisses me off. I often sit to watch movies over-and-over again to see how they’re put together, to try to figure out the secret sauce to their structure. Almost every time I put Heat on to reverse engineer it with Spock-like logic, I get sucked back into its emotion, action, and characters. But that’s Michael Mann, right? The Insider, Collateral, Miami Vice, Last of the Mohicans. Thief. Good God, watch Thief tonight if you can. Followed by Manhunter. Watch them alone, so you aren’t self-conscious on how others receive the clothes and music (all of which are just fine, by the way; fuck those who believe otherwise). Watch them for the characters and the verisimilitude they exert. See how Mann shows how serious-men deal with problems: with conviction and purpose. Some of them may be bad guys. Some, like Manhunter’s Will Graham and Heat’s Vince Hanna, are floating too close to the edge. But all of them have a line in the sand, a purpose, honor. They don’t snivel or whine or run. They act.

I guess tonight I’m putting on the engineer’s hat, to try to take apart Heat again scene by scene. I’m pretty much banking on my own failure — but that kind of failure I can live with.