First off I must say...I wanted to hate this movie pretty early. Within around 10min or so I thought the movie would suck, and I saw exactly where White Man was coming from with his complaints. The flaws that I saw were still there, but by the end of the movie I couldn't possibly bash it. It's not the best movie of all time, but it's pretty damn fascinating, and good. Not classic; the action is definitely classic, but everything in between the action is what holds the movie back.
As I always say acting is the most important aspect of movies for me. Although Heat features some pretty big names I can't honestly say they all carry through. Al Pacino is usually awesome, but on many occassions in this movie his trademark forced behavior is a bit too overdone, to almost comedic poroprtions. De Niro is awesome as usual imo, as is Sizemore. The supporting cast is pretty good, although Ashley Judd sucks as does Pacino's wife in the movie, who looks like a poor man's cheeseburger version of Demi Moore.
But my problem lies in the beginning of the movie, which just seems poorly executed. There's a lot of talking and bad acting and it really takes you out of the movie imo. Maybe the director didn't know what he wanted to do; this sounds reasonable considering how fucking long the movie is. Many of the early attempts at establishing each character's relationship with their wife/girlfriend seemed rushed and half assed imo. Mann tries to beat it over your head when in reality it doesn't need to be made so obvious. And that brings me to the dialogue. In terms of the relationship stuff it becomes quite obvious that a guy wrote all of it (Mann), and it doesn't seem realistic in many cases. But for the most part the dialogue in the rest of the movie is good.
It gets better as it progresses though, and when the plot begins to unfold things really get exciting. Yes, the bank heist is one of the most amazing action scenes I've ever seen. The camera work in the scene - and in many of the other action scenes - is fucking amazing. It's the best camera work on gunfights that I've ever seen, and it's quite obvious where videogames like Splinter Cell/RE4/Gears of War really got their inspiration. The last few scenes with Pacino/De Niro facing off are awesome.
Overall I must say this is a good movie. Not the classic I expected (Pacino+De Niro? Come on that has to work), but it was still good.
8.5/10
