Contrary to what the summary says, Heat is not a typical action movie between the good and bad guys. There are no clear lines between right and wrong, only fuzzy ones that sway from side to side. Robert DeNiro Neil McCauley, a deadly thief who does not like the police. While he's a bad ass, he also has compassion, and this is shown through his relationship with his innocent girlfriend, Eady. Al Pacino, on the other hand, is Detective Vincent Hanna, and while he is obviously the protagonist of the story, he can be a bad ass at times.

Heat is the story of these two men's lives and not just their pursual of each other. Pacino is chasing DeNiro but really, the movie is a drama about how they handle every day. Pacino has a daughter (Natalie Portman, Star Wars: Episode 1) who ends up attempting to commit suicide, he's having marital problems, and DeNiro is killing cops. DeNiro is trying to complete the last heist of his career and is planning on heading to New Zealand with his new girlfriend Eady, but his deadly ambitions get the better of him. When he should just go, he stays to finish the job, and in the end, that is his downfall.

With the likes of Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, and Jon Voight, the acting in Heat is incredible. Voight doesn't have much of a part in the movie, but if he had, the movie would have had to have been longer than it already is, which is a little too long.

Heat is an action-drama, which produces mixed effects. It is realistic and thrilling, but overall slow and tedious, as the minutes tick on by and there still is no sight of the end. There are only three real cool action scenes, the opening sequence (which I hardly got to see because whoever had watched the movie before me had garbled up the tape), the bank heist, and the ending. The bank heist is definitely worth watching. Still, the movie drags on for just a little short of three hours which is really long for a movie that doesn't have that much action.

Heat has good acting, a good story, and some cool action sequences, but it would have benefited if it had been about forty minutes shorter.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.