As others have said, I wouldn't go so far as to describe HEAT as my best all time film. However, I do enjoy the Michael Mann style of directing.
Especially his night shoots, even as far back as Miami Vice which had some interesting night scenes.
He's been critisized in the past for overly clean streets on his sets, etc. However, I think he gets a lot right in his scenes and I like to watch those night shots, the use he makes of street lighting and other light sources is entertaining and enjoyable to watch for that, imo.
You see it again in Collateral, lots of night scenes, the part where the camera is pointed down directly onto the street grid of the city, while the helicopter just floats across the sky, classical music as the sound track, was pure MM indulging himself. I like to think.
Also, HEAT, the use of that Moby track, again, great work and really suits the film, I think.
I too do not like the ending, I do not believe that the charachter played by Robert De Niro would have diverted to wipe out a nobody and risk all that he had at that point. Kind of goes against how I had come to understand that character, up to that point in the film. Furthermore, the timing of the main heist in the film, how the police stumble across a plan for the robbery AND manage to turn up during the robbers exit. Was a bit much. But I'm not going to pull the film apart, its good overall and how else was Mann going to launch into one of the best street shoot-out scenes I've ever seen. The sound of the guns echoing off the buildings, the loud rapid firing, again very atmospheric.
Great sound track, excellent camera work.
🙂
Solo.
