Heat-The Best Movie Ever

There are a few movies that I will watch every single time I catch them on tv: The first two Godfather films. Goodfellas. Scarface. (Though I always turn it off right after Tony shoots Sosa’s hitman Alberto in the car and things start to go downhill. I just can’t bear to see my Montana-bear face down in that bloody “The World is Yours” pool.) Heat is on that list as well, and, as far as I’m concerned, is the king of the bunch. For, you might not know it yet, but…Heat is the best movie ever made.


How, you ask? How can it not be! It pits the two Italian alphas of acting, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, in a life-or-death struggle of silverback dominance as they spout off shit like “Have no attachments. Allow nothing to be in your life that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat” and “I’m alone. I am not lonely.” (Coincidentally, I’ve been known to mutter both statements over and over under my breath as I jerk off to my old yearbooks. But that’s an article unto itself.) The rest of the cast is similarly superb, and, on top of all that, it contains the single-most amazing (non-pornographic) scene ever put on film: A 10-minute bank robbery that is so manly I still refuse to let any girlfriends watch it out of a fear it might impregnate them. Let the celebration of Heat‘s greatness begin.


The Cast

Let’s not bullshit ourselves: Heat‘s selling point is that it gets two of the greatest actors ever and veterans of countless guy films, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, on screen together. (You may notice I keep putting Al’s name ahead of Bobby D’s despite in the fact that “De Niro” is ahead of “Pacino” alphabetically. This is due to the fact that Al Pacino is of pure Sicilian ancestry while De Niro is a mongrel of partially-French, Irish and Dutch descent, a fact that disturbs me greatly to this day. I mean it’s goddamn Robert De Niro. The guy should be so Italian that he cums olive oil and shits fist-sized meatballs in a light Bolognese sauce.) Thankfully, both of their performances are top-notch: De Niro plays Neil McCauley, a zen thief, a dangerous man of few words who lives by an impossibly strict code of conduct. In other words, he’s everything I’d aspire to be if 80% of my life weren’t dedicated to eating fast food at every meal and staring at the countless Bang Bros. Network websites for hours on end.

Pacino, conversely, plays Vincent Hanna, the skilled detective out to bring De Niro and his crew down. In contrast to the samurai-like calm De Niro brings to his character, Pacino’s detective behaves like an autistic child who is one viewing of a tv commercial for Chuck E. Cheese away from repeatedly punching himself in his genitals. Here are some of his more-restrained exchanges in the film:


TONE LOC: (Yes, the Tone Loc. I told you the cast was great.) I can get killed for telling you this shit!


PACINO: You can get killed WALKING YOUR DOGGIE!


Such a dipshit line, yet he delivers it so well you can’t help but love it. Here’s another snippet of godlike dialogue between Pacino and the gentleman of color playing Tone Loc’s brother (I’m too lazy to look up his name, but, to narrow it down, he was a black guy with a shaven head):


BLACK GUY WITH SHAVEN HEAD: Vincent…


PACINO: (slamming table with his fists so hard that the dishes on it go flying) GIMMIE ALL YA GOT!


BLACK GUY WITH SHAVEN HEAD: Vincent…


PACINO: (more fist slamming) GIMMIE ALL YA GOT!


Oscar-worthy.


The rest of the cast is similarly top notch: Val Kilmer. Ashley Judd. Henry Rollins. Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Bubba from Forrest Gump. Natalie Portman before she grew breasts. (Or the approximation thereof. I still don’t get the fuss about that broad. She’s got a body like a 12-year-old Vietnamese boy. And yet somehow isn’t sexy. Hiyo!) Every actor in the film was of the utmost pedigree. I’d believe it if you told me Meryl Streep and Marlon Brando were used as uncredited extras.


The Robbery


The film’s centerpiece is a bank robbery that is without a doubt the most amazing action sequence you will ever witness. Before I continue, I’d just like to say I’m aware of the Dane Cook bit about how the heist scene in Heat makes him want to go out and commit armed robbery. I’d like to add that Dane Cook even speaking the name of my beloved Heat makes me want to bury him up to his neck in the sand and get the rest of the village to help me stone him to death. You know, the same way I’d handle things if I had to restore honor to my family after I caught my Afghani daughter not wearing her veil around a Westerner. Whore.


There is nothing the written word can do to convey the greatness of the scene, so I’ll just spit out some facts: The cast received months of weapons training prior to shooting the scene so they wouldn’t look like a bunch of short bus passengers when handling their guns. It is still shown to Marine Corps recruits as an example of both how to properly load a weapon mid-combat and how to retreat while under fire. The gunfire in the scene is so loud that, to this day, playing it will immediately cause my cat to defecate in fear wherever she’s standing. Finally, due to the detailed nature of the scene and the fact that 95% of the general population is mentally retarded and will ape anything they see on television, the Heat robbery is credited with countless copycat crimes, chief among them the famous North Hollywood Shootout, in which two guys in heavy body armor took on hundreds of cops before finally being put down. (Not to sound too Columbine-y, but I always did think that was a badass story.)


So do yourself a favor and watch (or re-watch) Heat. It’s currently streaming on Netflix. (Oh, Netflix…had you existed 15 years ago, I’d have never graduated high school.) You’ll thank me. Just remember: Don’t watch that robbery scene if you’re ovulating. Lest your family be forced to stone you to death. Whore.

Tagged as: Heat, Robert De Niro.