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Directed and written by Michael Mann, the 1995 crime drama movie Heat starred Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Jon Voight, Val Kilmer, and Tom Sizemore. The story follows the conflict between an LAPD detective and a career thief. The impact of their conflict on their professional and personal lives was also depicted in the movie. Mann wrote the script of Heat, basing it on a Chicago police officer, Chuck Adamson’s pursuit of criminal Neil McCauley.

Val Kilmer and Robert De Niro in Heat | Credits: Warner Bros.

Upon release, the movie received a positive response from the critics and the audience. The audience was excited to watch the pairing of Pacino and De Niro on-screen, and it did well. Heat is regarded as one of the most influential films of the crime-drama genre that went on to inspire others. Even though, as a supporting character, Kilmer’s performance in the movie was appreciated,...

Michael Mann has long been a filmmaker with an eye for detail. From his early work on Miami Vice to his later films like Collateral and The Insider, Mann explored the impact of work on one's identity through action. Nowhere is this more evident than in Heat, a film that was a turning point not only in Mann’s career but in the crime genre as a whole.

However, what some fans don’t realize is that its roots actually trace back to a lesser-known project – Mann’s 1989 TV film LA Takedown. While the TV movie shares the same cat-and-mouse relationship between a cop and a thief, it was limited by the constraints of TV production, resulting in a more stripped-down and less polished version of the story. What LA Takedown lacked in resources, Heat more than made up for in scale, depth, and precision.

Heat Is One of the...

There’s a sentimental heart to Michael Mann’s films, as much as his fans might not like to hear about it. Run a movie like Heat or Thief alongside the finest crime novels of the same bygone era Mann taps as fuel for his ongoing, elegiac meta-saga on heist men, bag men, and hit men. Run them against key works by Westlake, Chandler, Hammett, or Bezzerides—authors whose heroes and antiheroes are all hard, bad edges. In Mann’s world, sentimentality is front and center, the prize beyond the horizon for the Los Angeles cab driver, the storied Depression-era stickup man, or the Miami vice cop. It’s the reason for some of those mournful stares, those knowing half-smiles that punctuate your Miami Vice, your Public Enemies.

At the same time, these stories may also be that of the sentimental dream being crushed, its embers stubbed out by crippling disappointment.

Real-life crime movies come with even more jeopardy because viewers know the criminals and victims are real. Heist movies often portray criminals as protagonists, making the audience root for them to succeed. Not all heist movies are based on real cases; most of them are works of fantasy.

Crime movies can take on a completely different tone when they are based on real life, and even heist movies often find inspiration from true stories. Films based on real crimes are among the most popular in the genre; Goodfellas, The Untouchables, and Zodiac all have added layers of jeopardy because the viewer knows that the criminals and the victims are true stories. Of course, most bank robbery movies based on a true story don't take inspiration from real life as often as other crime films, as classics like Point Break and Ocean's 11 are pure fiction.

The joy of heist movies...

Heat 2 is Michael Mann's anticipated sequel to his classic 1995 film, exploring the origins of its iconic characters. The Heat 2 novel delves into the intricate backstories of Hanna and McCauley, setting the stage for a storytelling masterpiece. Casting rumors swirl around potential young actors to portray Heat 2's characters, with Adam Driver possibly being cast in the lead.

For the past three decades, Michael Mann's Heat has captivated audiences worldwide and influenced the films of countless other filmmakers. Like every other entry in Mann's one-of-a-kind filmography, Heat has never had a sequel; however, recent developments may finally cause this to change. In 2022, the director released his first novel, Heat 2, and now, he is preparing to translate that work to the big screen.

As Heat 2 enters pre-production, many fans of the original film are left asking the same question: what is Heat without Al Pacino, Robert De Niro,...

Michael Mann wants to bring his sequel to 1995's Heat to the big screen very soon.

During a panel discussion for Deadline Hollywood for the upcoming release of the director's biopic Ferrari, Mann revealed that Heat 2 will be his next project to shoot. Mann confirmed that elements of his 2022 novel Heat 2 will serve as the basis for the story set in the past and present. "Meg Gardiner and myself wrote the novel Heat 2, which came out right when we were shooting Ferrari," Mann said. "It did very well. I plan to shoot that next."

Related: Director Michael Mann Denies Claim He Crossed WGA Strike Picket Line

Heat was loosely based on the true story of real-life criminal Neil McCauley and his Chicago police pursuer Detective Chuck Adamson. Initially shot as an unsold NBC pilot called L.A. Takedown in 1989, Mann reconceived his original concept into the 1995 crime thriller...

Michael Mann has been clear that 1995's "Heat" is a drama and not a crime movie. But even when the audience is in on the mystery from the very start, and knows what the criminals are planning, Mann is able to make the story compelling through the characters' cat-and-mouse investigation of each other.

As was one of Mann's goals for the film, "Heat" paints a full picture of the private lives of Al Pacino's Vicent Hanna and Robert De Niro's Neil McAuley. Consistent with the film's title, Hanna's escalating efforts to subdue McAuley drive the plot, with each constantly trying to outsmart the other. Only at great cost does Hanna finally catch McCauley. In Mann's other films, like "Thief" (1981), "Collateral" (2004), and "Miami Vice" (2006) — though he rotates between spending time with cops, criminals, or civilians — characters are similarly in regular search for insight into how their enemy operates.

Mann is...

Michael Mann is having quite a week. In addition to beginning production on his star-studded film “Ferrari” this week in Italy, the director’s first novel, “Heat 2,” a sequel to his epic 1995 crime epic, is topping bestseller lists.

Written alongside veteran thriller writer Meg Gardiner, the book reprises the complex characters featured in the original film, namely the professional thief Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) and LAPD detective Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino). Although the film ends with Hanna’s murder of McCauley at the end of his years-long investigation, the pair had created an inexplicable bond through their catch-and-kill dynamic that’s further explored in the book’s prequel scenes. One of the most revelatory plot points is the revelation that Hanna and McCauley unknowingly crossed paths in a previous major heist before they met each other.

The 466-page tome, which serves as both a sequel and prequel, also delves...

The publication of Heat 2 this week marks writer-director Michael Mann’s debut as a novelist, expands the mythology of perhaps his most beloved film, and becomes the first major release of the publishing imprint he set at William Morrow six years ago.

From the TV series Miami Vice and Crime Story to his feature debut Thief, to the Tom Cruise-Jamie Foxx thriller Collateral and the 1995 Al Pacino-Robert De Niro drama classic Heat, Mann’s crime procedurals are informed by an intimate knowledge of cops and robbers that breathes life and multi-dimensional characters with empathy to go with the violence in lawbreaking.

That is the same thing that Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo did with The Godfather films, David Chase for his The Sopranos series, and Martin Scorsese for Goodfellas and Casino, the other crime high-water marks of the last half century. What is interesting here is the difference in...

It ends the only way it can end, with two of the toughest men in Los Angeles holding hands as one of them bleeds out on the periphery of Lax’s tarmac. For the greater part of two and a half hours, we’ve watched Neil McCauley — mastermind of heists and bank robberies — and Vincent Hanna — lieutenant in the LAPD’s Major Crimes Unit — circle one another, chase each other, and calmly converse over a cup of coffee. Now, however, these apex predators of the urban jungle have reached their endgame,...

Exclusive: Michael Mann is ready to rip on Heat 2, a novel he has written with Edgar-winner Meg Gardiner that expands the tapestry of his 1995 crime classic film. The surprise here: the novel coming August 9 from William Morrow through the HarperCollins-based Michael Mann Books imprint will tell an original story about the lives of the characters in that movie both before and after the events depicted in the movie..

To those like myself who’ve watched the atmospheric Los Angeles-based heist thriller dozens of times, the prospect of its creator revisiting the terrain and characters is something to look forward to. To remind, the meticulously plotted mano a mano matchup between LAPD Homicide/Robbery lieutenant Vincent Hanna and master thief Neil McCauley became...

Ryan Lambie Dec 13, 2019

More than two decades on, Heat is still an important film. We look at how Michael Mann's research made for a powerful crime drama.

Cool, measured, melancholy and stylish, Michael Mann's Heat was a box office hit in 1995, and 18 years on, its impact can still be felt. A story about two weary men on either side of the law - one a cop married to his profession, the other a career criminal with no intention of going straight - Heat is also a movie about Los Angeles, in all its sparkly opulence and grimy malaise. Other directors have attempted to bottle some of Heat's atmosphere and move it to another city, whether it be London (see The Sweeney or the visually striking Welcome To The Punch) or Gotham, as seen in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight: look at the way Nolan and cinematographer...

"Heat" is arguably everyone's favorite Michael Mann movie.

It's the source of a rare Robert De Niro/Al Pacino summit, one of the most gripping cops-and-robbers thrillers ever made, and a quintessential Los Angeles movie. Yet, when it opened 20 years ago (on December 15, 1995), it went unheralded by the Angelenos in the Academy.

Despite being snubbed for Oscar nominations, it went on to be considered a classic, one imitated not only by filmmakers (ahem Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight") but also by real-life crooks. Still, for all the obsessive viewings and re-viewings, there's a lot you may not know about "Heat." Here are 11 things you need to know.

1. The inspiration for De Niro's Neil McCauley was a real-life Chicago thief of the same name. The real-life Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino's character) was Chicago cop Chuck Adamson, a technical adviser on Mann's TV police dramas "Miami Vice" and "Crime Story."

2. As in the film,...

Crime Story, Season 1, Episode 1 “Pilot”

Directed by Abel Ferrara

Written by Chuck Adamson, David J. Burke and Gustave Reiniger

Aired 18 September 1986

There are many reasons why the pilot of 1986’s Crime Story may not be great television.

The 90+ minute story by series creators Chuck Adamson and Gustave Reininger never gains any real traction as they introduce the 1963 Chicago Major Crimes Unit team and their mob rivals. Two veterans from Miami Vice, creators Adamson and Reininger’s ambitious story tries to introduce too many characters from both sides of the law. While focusing on Detective Mike Torello (more on him later), they try to cram everything from cop/mob rivalry and revenge to marital discord into this first episode. With everything they are wanting to accomplish, they lose sight of building any basic structure to this episode as this pilot moves from one plot point to another with little grace or...

When the news of Dennis Farina’s death by cancer at age 69 came through early this week, I think I felt a particularly sharp pang because it came so soon after the passing of James Gandolfini. I hadn’t thought of it before, but with Gandolfini still fresh in my mind, when I heard about Farina’s death I had a sense of connection between the two actors, and the same sense of having lost “one of our own.”

As actors, they were poles apart. Gandolfini was the trained actor, the skilled artist, somebody who had found his calling young and applied himself to perfecting his instrument. Farina’s was a case of fortunate circumstance, natural ability, and working from the gut.

But what they both shared – and what I’d always responded to in both men – was an Italian-American blue collar-dom, a sense of being one of the guys,...

Dennis Farina, a former Chicago police officer turned actor, has died. His representative told the Associated Press that he "died Monday morning in a Scottsdale, Ariz., hospital after suffering a blood clot in his lung." Farina served in the Chicago Police Department, reportedly for 18 years. His first acting appearance came in Michael Mann's Thief in 1981. Mann cast him as Jack Crawford in 1986's Manhunter, but his big breakthrough came as Lt. Mike Torello in TV's Crime Story. Mann served as executive producer, which was co-created by Chuck Adamson, who had been one of Farina's police partners. That show was the first time I saw Farina, who exhibited crisp command and absolute authenticity as the head of Chicago's Major Crimes Unit in the early...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Film and television star Dennis Farina passed away at the age of 69 in Arizona. The actor's publicist confirmed his death, but an exact cause has not been released at this time.

Born in Chicago in 1944, Dennis Farina served as a Chicago police officer for 18 years before he started acting at the age of 37. His former law enforcement partner Chuck Adamson created the series Crime Story in 1986, which Dennis Farina starred in as Lt. Mike Torello throughout its two-season run.

He then moved to film roles such as Midnight Run, Another Stakeout, Little Big League, Get Shorty, Saving Private Ryan, Snatch, and many more. He starred as Detective Joe Fontana on NBC's Law & Order from 2004 to 2006.

Most recently, the actor starred in a two-episode arc of the hit Fox sitcom New Girl, where he played the father of Jake Johnson's character, who ironically passed away last season. He is survived by three sons,...

Ryan Lambie Aug 21, 2017

21 years on, Heat is still an important, influential film. We look at how Michael Mann's research made for a powerful crime drama...

"This is based on observations. This is based on people I have met, people I've known, people I've sat with and talked to. Thieves, cops, killers. It's not derived from other cinema, it's based on research." Michael Mann

Cool, measured, melancholy and stylish, Michael Mann's Heat was a box office hit in 1995, and 18 years on, its impact can still be felt. A story about two weary men on either side of the law - one a cop married to his profession, the other a career criminal with no intention of going straight - Heat is also a movie about Los Angeles, in all its sparkly opulence and grimy malaise. Other directors have attempted to bottle some of Heat's atmosphere and move it to another city,...

Feature Ryan Lambie 8 May 2013 - 06:50

Eighteen years on, Heat is still an important, influential film. We look at how Michael Mann's research made for a powerful crime drama...

"This is based on observations. This is based on people I have met, people I've known, people I've sat with and talked to. Thieves, cops, killers. It's not derived from other cinema, it's based on research." Michael Mann

Cool, measured, melancholy and stylish, Michael Mann's Heat was a box office hit in 1995, and 18 years on, its impact can still be felt. A story about two weary men on either side of the law - one a cop married to his profession, the other a career criminal with no intention of going straight - Heat is also a movie about Los Angeles, in all its sparkly opulence and grimy malaise. Other directors have attempted to bottle some of Heat's...

Locations in films are rarely the thing an average filmgoer remembers after watching a film; it’s always about the story, character and the lines they say that later form the proverbial ‘word of mouth.’ However, when you think of great confrontations, conversations and simple exchanges, they always take place in a nice public setting – although being surrounded by a group of unknowing people rarely dulls the impact of a tense interaction.

An epiphany came after some light people-watching during a mediocre pancake breakfast – they seem to take place in a restaurant, diner or some kind of eatery; a place where some of TV and film’s classic characters can settle an old score of even debate on pop culture over a cup of coffee:

Café des 2 Moulins, Paris (Amélie, 2001)

This quaint coffee shop, where young dreamer Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) worked and interacted with a variety of characters, is based in Montmatre,...