LA Weekly from Los Angeles, California • 47

uns and Poses I Michael Mann Heat I RITTLN AS H1. AS OIRt (.1 I) Mann, Heat runs and runs on for neailv three hours. Hanna piths up McCaulev's trail soon after the armored-truck robbery, and much of the rest of the movie keeps the two in a baroque round of tag. There's also a confusing subplot involving a crooked Wall I Street type (William Fichtner, with Henry Rol-i lins as his private pit bull), and a truly prepostei-j ous bend in the story that introduces a serial killer (yes, another one) on the gang's periphery. While Hanna gets on that case, too, Mann has the good sense to drop the subplot almost as fast as he picks it up.

Not fast enough, however, to spare us the sight of a bloodied, attractive female corpse. Mann is better on screen than on papei, which is why his best films Manhunter, the 1 extraordinary ImsI of the Mohicans spring from other sources. Heat isn't badly written but it is chock-a-block with killer cliches and not a few howlers, usually whenever the plot eases into domestic downtime. For all that the film is dri- ven by testosterone, the sight of those prettv boys and their big scary toys, key to its sense and weird rhythms are the wives and girlfriends who stand at the ready. As neatly matched as a dance between a pair of single-sex colleges, the storv awards each man his own woman, some more true blue than others.

In the case of both Chris and Hanna, theres also a kid, with the detective playing stepdaddy to Natalie Portman The Pro- fessional' snymphet). FILM Al Pacino's that climaxes with a megaton armored truck tossed through the air like a childs Tonka. Soon afterward, though, something goes wrong, and one of McCauleys hired guns (Kevin Gage, all sneer and jailhouse tattoos) puts a bullet in one of the armored-truck guards. The dead pile up within seconds, although not because McCauley wants innocent blood spilled. However corrupt, McCauley is a man of honor.

That is, at least, what Mann would have us believe, which explains all those many shots of De Niro looking pensive and acutely alone. Theres something of an American tradition in mistaking silence for depth, a confusion thats bred a legion of taciturn screen heroes from Deeds to Gump. Gangsters, too, have often gone silent, especially since Jimmy Cagneys rapid-fire delivery was laid to rest. Yet now hat passes for quiet is more blank incomprehension. De Niro doesnt do much vocalizing (or deep thinking) in Heat, although hes considerably more present as McCauley, at moments more d)namic, than, say, as Casinos more loquacious fixer.

De Niros McCauley is detached but engaged; his is a leaders allegiance to his followers, along with the thiefs dedication to the well-tempered heist. If De Niro doesnt talk much in Heat (his body movements are just as spare), its because Pacino does enough babbling and barking for the two of them. Loud to the point of parody, his arms pumping wildly (no doubt to keep all that hot air circulating), Pacino bellows his lines at the same decibel level that gave a jolt to the otherwise limp Scent of a Woman. Hes a riot of one, a dynamo charging into the scene of a crime like some demented cross between the Mad Hatter and Hercule Poirot, all sputter, rage and churning gray cells. But if Pacinos Hanna is over the top, hes never out of control.

Like McCauley, he holds a tight rein on his own dedicated squad, culled from the LAPDs finest. Like McCauley, he lives for the job. BY MANOHLA DARGIS Dts title to the contrary, Michael Manns latest crime story is flooded with wintery blues and grays. An epic of violence and exquisite male posturing, its a genre standard jammed with talent every inch as steely, though none so tough as Vincent Hanna and Neil McCauley, cop-and-robber doppelgangers played by Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. More chilly than cool (the vibe warms only when blood colors the scene), Heat is ostensibly about men and their guns and a few tired, loyal women, but at its core its actually about virtuosity the virtuosity of the outlaw, the virtuosity of the lawman, and, bv extension, the virtuosi tv of Mann himself, i of which theres no short supply.

Too bad its running on empty; if the film werent so hollow it would be a masterpiece. Born in Britain but stoked on go-go Hollywood, Mann plays Heat with force and terrific facility if not enough heart and scant little soul. Not that it matters, at least at the box office, not in this age of Toy Story and Casino and cinema as a fetish of technique. Manns film may be nearly soulless but its also a triumph of craft, one that finds its writer-director in league with some of the leading modern auteurs (think Ridley Scott and, now more than ever, Scorsese) even as it proves that when it comes to the movies, what matters more and more is less the story per se, its point or meaning, than yards of filigree trim. A two-star show, Heat turns on the fortunes of McCauley, a first-class criminal, sleeked and goateed, and his principal enemy, the supercharged Hanna, an equally smart, stylish cop who gets on his case.

McCauleys a gangster with a code (hes meant to be professional, not greedy), who leads a crack posse that includes Val Kilmers Chris as his primary henchman, Tom Sizemore as Michael, a faithful dog, and a desiccated Jon Voight as the crews point man, Nate. Like Thief, Manns artful, gritty feature debut with James Caan as a burglar with a taste for $800 suits. Heat kicks off with a caper calculated to dazzle, a feat of engineered larceny involving a monster tow truck, an ambulance, a fistful of explosives and enough artillery to mount a Joel Silver big-bang spectacular. Its a sensational opening stroke, a fusillade of images grabbed from every conceivable angle Wearing the same bebop hairdo from Bird, Diane Venora as Justine holds her own against husband Pacino; she rescues the pill-popping, bed-hopping borderline shrew from fatuousness. Even better, Venora makes us want more from Justine, and not simply because she can hurl i choice bromides and not lose her balance.

(I I may be stoned on grass and Prozac .) The same is true of Ashleyjudd. who as Charlene, Chris' bottle-blond harpy, seems determined to erase all memories of her delicate turn in Rubs in Paradise, delivering a raw, unexpectedly nuanced performance from a role more sketched than developed. Justine and Charlene are uppity, but because Mann's such an unrecon- structed romantic, their major virtue is loyalty. When the two women aren't mouthing off to the men, theyre melting with love, understanding, resignation. That may be tired, but it isn't sexist, not exactly.

Sizemores Michael also makes cow eyes at McCauley, as does Chris. Theres something at stake here, and not just some Hawksian covenant of the devout and the dumb. What binds the men to McCauley is his expertise, mastery. McCauleys so good and so thorough that when he beats a guy, he does so next to his car, its trunk open and lined with plastic. Forget Joe Pescis murderous hothead in Good-fellas.

McCauley kills not in a crazed fit but to take care of business, a work ethic that earns Hannas respect, and the cops nearly obsessive attentions. DECEMBER 15-DECEMBER 21, 1995 WEEKLY 47.