Al Pacino and Robert De Niro’s dueling performances add an extra punch to the 1995 masterpiece which is both action-heavy and deeply tragic
C
onsider the hype leading into Heat when it hit theatres 30 years ago today. Here was Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, two legends the movie’s trailers flexed by their rhyming last names only, both masters of their craft who, much like their characters, had been watching each other from a distance (maybe competitively, maybe with respect and admiration), sharing the screen for the very first time. The pent-up anticipation was built right into the narrative, which patiently delays the onscreen face-off between Pacino’s dogged homicide detective Vincent Hanna and De Niro’s career criminal Neil McCauley for almost 90 textured and intense minutes.
Imagine the surprise then, and the comic relief, when the moment finally arrives, and these two opposing forces collide (as the trailers would say) … for a warm and exceptionally civil cup of coffee.
That calling card scene, inspired by a 1964 exchange between Detective Chuck Adamson and the real-life Neil McCauley, may not have delivered the fireworks we would have expected in a high stakes cat-and-mouse thriller with a mounting body count. But there are fireworks to be sure: two larger-than-life performances of men left alienated and melancholic by their chosen careers. They ever so briefly set their differences aside, let their tough guy demeanor slide, and simply see each other’s vulnerability.
