A long ass movie that didn’t need to be an long ass movie.
De Niro plays Neil McCauley, a professional burglar who is a calm and methodical introvert, while Pacino plays Lt. Vincent Hanna, veteran LAPD homicide detective whose explosive temper and devotion to his job causes him to neglect those closest to him.
For a long time now I have been just craving the time and effort to watch this film, now that I have seen it, I can finally stop wondering if it is great or not.
I have to give director Michael Mann credit here because he takes the old story about two people stuck in their lives, and puts in a different seat, and fresher approach. The film had some great and exciting action scenes in it with plenty of the crazy shootouts that we all know and love Mann for.
I enjoyed how well the script moved along with such a long movie. This film goes into great detail about how a score is taken down and how law enforcement track their prey. The action is there and plenty of times but the film gives their characters and story enough time to talk and be a three-dimensional character. The screenplay is written so witty, truly, and also very compelling.
The complaint I had with this film was that it was 171 minutes, when it should have been about 150 minutes or less. There are a lot of powerful scenes that keep your interest as the film goes on, but there are sometimes where nothing at all except for talking happens. I did enjoy a lot of the talking but the rest was very lack luster and didn’t quite enjoy me as much. The film had a couple of scenes where it just lagged on completely cause there really was nothing else going on. In my opinion, Mann should have at least cutted out 45 minutes of this film and left the better scenes in there.
Now the main reason for this film to be seen is cause its De Niro and Pacino’s first-time on-screen together, even though its only for about 10 minutes. I liked how all the scenes they were given were not just to play off of each other but more of to play themselves and give their own look at the character. The one scene where they finally meet is just a great scene that almost every film buff should watch if they want to see greatness.
Consensus: Though a lot of it should have been cut out, Heat still packs those 171 minutes with a well-written script, exciting action, and most of all 2 great performances from De Niro and Pacino.
8.5/10=Matinee!!!
Dan the Man's Movie Reviews 
That heist and firefight in the streets made up for everything else. Fantastic sequence and the best firefight put on film to this date.
The action was very very awesome in this film, it just didn’t fully make up for a lot of the extra non-needed scenes.
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