Heat is a 1995 American epic crime drama film written and directed by Michael Mann and starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi, Ted Levine, Jon Voight, and Val Kilmer. In the film, LAPD detective Vincent Hanna (Pacino) attempts to apprehend career thief Neil McCauley (De Niro), leading to strain on their professional lives and personal relationships.
Mann wrote the original script for Heat in 1979, basing it on Chicago police officer Chuck Adamson's pursuit of criminal Neil McCauley, after whom De Niro's character is named. The script was first used for a television pilot developed by Mann, which became the 1989 television film L.A. Takedown after the pilot did not receive a series order. In 1994, Mann revisited the script to turn it into a feature film, co-producing the project with Art Linson. The film marks De Niro and Pacino's first on-screen appearance together after co-starring but not sharing a scene in The Godfather Part II (1974): the film's promotion centered heavily on the actors' involvement.
Heat was theatrically released in the United States by Warner Bros. on December 15, 1995. It grossed $187.4 million worldwide and received critical acclaim, with praise for Mann's direction as well as the performances from both Pacino and De Niro. Heat is considered to be one of the best and most influential crime films of all time, inspiring several other works. A sequel novel, Heat 2, was written by Mann and Meg Gardiner and released in 2022, with a film adaptation to be written and directed by Mann and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale.
Plot
Neil McCauley, a Los Angeles professional thief, and his crew—Chris Shiherlis, Michael Cheritto, Gilbert Trejo, and new recruit Waingro—rob $1.6 million in bearer bonds from an armored car. Waingro, who unbeknownst to McCauley is an active serial killer who targets underaged prostitutes, kills a guard without provocation, forcing the crew to kill two other guards. McCauley plans to kill Waingro in retribution for the guards' deaths, but Waingro escapes.
LAPD Robbery Homicide Detective Lieutenant Vincent Hanna and his team investigate the robbery. Hanna, a dedicated lawman and former Marine, has a strained relationship with his third wife, Justine, and struggles to connect with his stepdaughter, Lauren.
McCauley, who lives a solitary life, begins a relationship with Eady, a graphic designer who is new to Los Angeles and has no local connections.
McCauley's fence Nate suggests selling the stolen bonds to their original owner, money launderer Roger Van Zant. Van Zant pretends to agree, but instead arranges an ambush. Anticipating a trap, McCauley and his crew counter-ambush and kill the hitmen. Afterward, McCauley threatens to kill Van Zant. An informant connects Cheritto to the robbery, and Hanna's team begins monitoring him, identifying the rest of the crew and their next target, a precious metals depository. The team stakes out the depository and subsequently breaks in, but when a careless officer makes a noise, McCauley aborts the heist. Unable to prove McCauley's crew stole anything, Hanna reluctantly lets them escape.
The next day, McCauley's crew plans one final bank robbery worth $12.2 million. Hanna stops McCauley on the 105 Freeway and invites him to coffee. They discuss their dedication to their jobs and personal limitations. Hanna talks about his failing marriage, and McCauley admits he is also isolated. Both men express mutual respect, but declare they will kill the other if necessary. Waingro makes a deal with Van Zant to eliminate McCauley's crew. Trejo backs out of the heist after suspecting he is being monitored by the LAPD. McCauley hires old colleague Don Breedan as the getaway driver, and they execute the heist.
Tipped by Van Zant's associate Hugh Benny, the LAPD intercepts the crew after leaving the bank, sparking a shootout. Breedan and Cheritto, along with many police, are killed, while Shiherlis is wounded. McCauley and Shiherlis escape, and McCauley takes Shiherlis to a doctor before leaving him with Nate. Suspecting Trejo tipped off the police, McCauley goes to his house to find him mortally wounded and his wife dead. Before asking McCauley to kill him, Trejo reveals Waingro and Van Zant were responsible and forced him to disclose the bank heist.
McCauley kills Van Zant at his home, while Hanna's team detains Benny. Discovering McCauley's connection to Waingro, who is hiding in a hotel, Hanna uses Waingro as bait to lure McCauley. As McCauley plans to retreat, Eady discovers his criminal identity but agrees to go with him. Shiherlis plans to reconcile with his estranged wife Charlene, who is being forced by the LAPD to bring him in. When Shiherlis arrives at Charlene's safe house, she warns him off with a hand gesture and he escapes.
Having separated from Justine, Hanna finds Lauren in his hotel room, unconscious after attempting suicide. He rushes her to the hospital and saves her life. Hanna reconciles with Justine, although the two agree that their marriage will never work.
McCauley drives with Eady to the Los Angeles International Airport to flee to New Zealand via private jet. However, when Nate gives him Waingro's location, McCauley abandons his usual caution to seek revenge. Posing as hotel security and triggering a fire alarm evacuation, McCauley infiltrates the hotel and kills Waingro in his room. However, as McCauley returns to Eady, he is spotted by Hanna and flees. Hanna chases McCauley onto the tarmac at the airport, and the two stalk each other before Hanna gets the upper hand and shoots McCauley. Hanna takes McCauley's hand as he dies of his wounds.
Cast
Additional cast members include Martin Ferrero as a hardware salesman, Farrah Forke as news reporter Claudia, Patricia Healy as a woman in a relationship with Bosko, Rainelle Saunders as a prostitute murdered by Waingro, Hazelle Goodman as the prostitute's mother, and Yvonne Zima as the girl taken hostage by Cheritto. Featured as members of the LAPD are Steven Ford as Officer Bruce, Paul Herman as Sergeant Heinz, Cindy Katz as forensics investigator Rachel, Brian Libby as Captain Jackson, and Dan Martin as Detective Harry Dieter. Stuntmen Rick Avery, Bill McIntosh, and Thomas Rosales Jr. portray the armored truck guards. Bud Cort makes an uncredited appearance as restaurant owner Solenko.
Development Michael Mann, for Heat (just like for Collateral and Thief), created the character of Neil McCauley, played by Robert De Niro, drawing inspiration from the minimalist and detached style of Alain Delon in Le Samouraï. The line "I am alone, not lonely" from McCauley (De Niro in Heat) directly echoes the one from Jeff Costello (Delon in Le Samouraï): "I never lose, never really".
Factual basis Heat is based on the true story of Neil McCauley, a calculating criminal and ex-Alcatraz inmate who was tracked down by Detective Chuck Adamson in 1964. In 1961, McCauley was transferred from Alcatraz to McNeil Island Corrections Center, as mentioned in the film. He was released in 1962 and immediately began planning new crimes. Michael Parille and William Pinkerton used bolt cutters and drills to rob a manufacturing company of diamond drill bits, which is recreated in the film.DVD Extra Interview with Michael Mann; The Making of Heat
Pacino's character is largely based on Adamson, who began keeping tabs on McCauley's crew, knowing that he had begun committing crimes again. Adamson and McCauley met for coffee once, as portrayed in the film. Their dialogue in the script is based on the conversation that McCauley and Adamson had. The next time that the two met, guns were drawn, which is also mirrored in the movie.
On March 25, 1964, McCauley and members of his regular crew followed an armored car that delivered money to a National Tea grocery store at 4720 S. Cicero Avenue, Chicago. When the drop was made, three of the robbers entered the store. They threatened the clerks and stole money bags worth $13,137 (equivalent to $ in ) before getting away amid police gunfire.
McCauley's crew was unaware that Adamson and eight other detectives had blocked off all potential exits. When the getaway car turned down an alley, the robbers saw the blockade and realized they were trapped. All four exited the vehicle and began firing. Russell Bredon (or Breaden) and Michael Parille were slain in an alley while Miklos Polesti (on whom Chris Shiherlis is loosely based) shot his way out and escaped. McCauley was shot to death on the lawn of a nearby home. He was 50 years old and the prime suspect in several burglaries. Polesti was caught days later and sent to prison. Polesti was still alive in 2011.
Adamson went on to a successful career as a television and film producer. He died in 2008 at age 71. Mann's 2009 film Public Enemies is dedicated to Adamson's memory. The character of Nate, played by Jon Voight, is based on criminal-turned-author Edward Bunker, who served as a consultant to Mann on the film.
Canceled TV series
In 1979, Mann wrote a 180-page draft of Heat. He rewrote it after making Thief in 1981, hoping to find a director to make it and mentioning it publicly in a promotional interview for his 1983 film The Keep. In the late 1980s, he offered the film to his friend, film director Walter Hill, who turned him down. Following the success of Miami Vice and Crime Story, Mann was to produce a new crime television show for NBC. He turned the script that would become Heat into a 90-minute pilot for a television series featuring the Los Angeles Police Department Robbery–Homicide division, featuring Scott Plank in the role of Hanna, and Alex McArthur playing the character of Neil McCauley, renamed to Patrick McLaren.
The pilot was shot in nineteen days, atypical for Mann. The script was shortened to almost a third of its original length, omitting many subplots that made it into Heat. The network was unhappy with Plank as the lead actor, and asked Mann to recast Hanna's role. Mann declined and the show was canceled and the pilot aired on August 27, 1989, as a television film entitled L.A. Takedown, which was eventually released on VHS and DVD in Europe.
Production Pre-production On April 5, 1994, Mann was reported to have abandoned his earlier plan to shoot a biopic of James Dean in favor of directing Heat, producing it with Art Linson. The film marks the first on-screen appearance together of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Both actors had starred in The Godfather Part II but, owing to the film's story structure, they are not seen in the same scene. Pacino and De Niro were Mann's first choices for the roles of Hanna and McCauley, respectively, and they both immediately agreed to act.
Mann assigned Janice Polley, a former collaborator on The Last of the Mohicans, as the film's location manager, along with Lori Balton, who primarily handled scouting duties. Scouting locations lasted from August to December 1994. Mann requested locations that had not appeared on film before, in which Balton was successful—fewer than 10 of the 85 filming locations were previously used. The most challenging shooting location proved to be Los Angeles International Airport, with the film crew nearly missing the shot due to a threat to the airport by the Unabomber.
To make the long shootout more realistic, they hired British ex-Special Air Service sergeant Andy McNab as a technical weapons trainer and adviser. He designed a weapons-training curriculum to train the actors for three months using live ammunition before shooting with blanks for the actual take and worked with training them for the bank robbery. The training worked so well, the U.S Army used parts of the film to train new soldiers.
Casting