"Heat": Way uncool
Towards the end of "Heat," a 3 hour fusillade of cliches written and directed by "Miami Vice's" Michael Mann, Al Pacino rushes into an emergency room carrying his suicidal stepdaughter and shouts, "Quick, someone get a doctor!" At this moment of high drama, a wag in the audience at a recent screening piped up: "Quick, someone get a script doctor!"The cast (Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Jon Voight) and the story line seem promising enough. De Niro plays a hard-boiled L.A. thief, still at the top of his game, who wants to get out the business while his luck holds. Pacino is a hard-boiled detective, the kind who is brought in to take on the really bad guys. Both recognize the gladiator in the other and relish the combat. There are mean characters, sultry love interests and an armory of weapons large enough to supply a small nation.
That disaster looms is apparent from the moment we lay eyes on Pacino's vaguely clown-like makeup and what looks suspiciously like Grecian Formula on his unnaturally black hair. (And does Jon Voight's face really look like shredded curtain nowadays, or is that more makeup overkill?) Pacino chews gum loudly, his eyes bulge a lot, he bangs tables and snaps his fingers as he utters lines like "Keeps me sharp, where I gotta be." This is a man who is not acting his age; when he chases villains, we wonder whether his heart will hold up.
De Niro, on the other hand, walks through the movie looking alternately bemused and pained. No wonder, with lines like, "I don't know who I am any more," a lover who gives new meaning to the word "mousy" and a completely inexplicable lust for New Zealand (New Zealand?) as his retirement home.
All the squealing tires, flying bullets and falling bodies cannot save "Heat" from drowning in its own banalities -- post-coital cigarettes, bad-guy music used like a drum roll to herald entrance of bad guy, greasy pony tails, a sulky, wrist-slashing teenager, and an airport runway chase.
Bobby, Al. How could you?
