Heat (1995)

2007 #68
Michael Mann | 164 mins | DVD | 15 / R

Heat will probably always be best remembered for two things: the excellent running shoot out on the streets of L.A., and De Niro and Pacino on screen together for the first (and, so far, last) time.

There’s a lot more to it than that, of course: ostensibly a cops-and-robbers crime drama, the film follows the personal lives of each side as well as the usual professional actions. The cop-with-failed-marriage / criminal-with-successful-relationship juxtaposition may already feel clichéd, but it works well enough here, and is well executed without distracting from the meat of the plot — which is, still, the crime and justice.