Retro Review: In the Post-#MeToo Era, Heat Offers a Nuanced Vision of Masculinity

Retro Review: In the Post-#MeToo Era, Heat Offers a Nuanced Vision of Masculinity

Once upon a time, Heat was once a modest hit film known mostly for a single standout scene. In recent years, it has been elevated by critics to the status of masterpiece. Even before its release in 1995, the buzz was strong over a tete-a-tete between characters played by Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, who had never shared the screen before (they were both in The Godfather Part II but not in the same scene). The scene lived up to the hype, but the…

Val Kilmer’s Best ‘Heat’ Scene Had a Very Different Purpose Revealed by Michael Mann, 30 Years Later

In 1995, Val Kilmer starred alongside Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in a film titled Heat. Directed and written by Michael Mann, the film found worldwide fame for its shootout scenes and action. It wasn’t any ordinary shootout scene that Michael Mann told Val Kilmer to copy from. The scenes in Heat where Val Kilmer is raining bullets on the police officers felt different than other movies, not because of the sheer amount of bullets that Kilmer wa…