Adaptation Displacement: Even dedicated Mann fans might not be aware that this is a remake of his earlier L.A. Takedown. It's arguable that this was intentional; L.A. Takedown was a television film that suffered from a low budget and heavily cut script to fit a 90-minute runtime. This film is also one of the few cases where the remake is nigh-universally agreed to be superior to the original.
It's left up in the air how sympathetic Neil and his crew are. Are they furious with Waingro and anxious to kill him because they are morally repulsed by his needless violence, or simply because his recklessness during the first heist brought them more police attention than they would have had if the guards hadn't been killed during the heist? Or is it both?
Also, did Neil abandon Eady due to his "being able to leave something in 30 seconds" rule or because he realized how screwed he was and didn't want Eady to get convicted with him? Or is there even a hint of "wait a second, did you call the cops on me here?" betrayal and grief in his expression?
22 years after the film's release, Al Pacino finally revealed that he saw Hanna as a cocaine addict who's strung out throughout the whole film.
The opening credits theme by Kronos Quartet (which also plays when Neil decides to kill Waingro rather than leave the country right away with Eady) is excellent as well, perfectly setting the tone for the movie.
Seeing Neil kill Waingro is immensely satisfying after all the shit he pulled.
Equally satisfying to see is Breedan giving his Bad Boss a well-deserved shove to the floor.
Evil Is Cool: Neil McCauley. An incredibly badass bank robber whose masterminded many a heist before, and even with the police breathing down his neck, remains an almost entirely unflappable and downright likable Consummate Professional.
The film is known for the climactic bank robbery scene, where Neil and his gang get into a gunfight with the police and shoot up Downtown LA with automatic rifles. Then, two years after the movie's release, the North Hollywood shootout happened as two gunmen armed with automatic rifles robbed a bank, then were killed after a 44 minute shootout with the Los Angeles Police Department. No police officers were killed in the North Hollywood shootout, but some were badly wounded, and remember, this shootout was six times longer than the film's shootout, which lasts just under seven minutes. It's also of note that the robbers of the North Hollywood Shootout reportedly watched this film numerous times. Infamous French bank robber Redoine Faid also cited 'Heat' as an inspiration for his life of crime and even took part in a question and answer session with Michael Mann about the film.
Seeing Shiherlis' marital issues throughout the film become this due to Val Kilmer going through similar issues of infidelity within his own marriage to Joanne Whalley, which eventually led to his divorce the following year.
Ted Levine and Mykelti Williamson play two of Hanna's detectives, Bosko and Drucker respectively. They'd later meet again on Monk in "Mr. Monk Takes Manhattan," where their respective characters, SFPD Captain Leland Stottlemeyer and NYPD Captain Walter Cage, had a lot of friction and hostility towards each other.
Hollywood Homely: Eady's looks are never addressed in the film, but she talks a lot about being lonely and having trouble finding other people to connect with. In the real world, it's hard to imagine a woman who looks like Amy Brenneman lacking attention.
Ho Yay: Not hard to see between Neil and Vincent, who share a mutual obsession with each other are able to open up to each other more than either of them are to their respective female partners. At times it seems that they can almost sense each other's presence.
Both Hanna and Shiherlis could count. Granted, they have issues with their wives cheating on them.
Breedan. He tries so hard to go straight, but is pushed back into crime after being saddled with a low-paying job where his abusive boss steals part of his paycheck and blackmails him into putting up with it by threatening to lie that he violated his parole.
Just Here for Godzilla: For many people, the main draw of this film is seeing Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino go head to head for the first time ever. With the years, it has become a referential, terrific film beyond that, also noted for some excellent performances from the supporting cast.
Love to Hate: Waingro is such a loathsome, irredeemable piece of shit that you can't help but cheer when Neil does him in.
Neil McCauley is a master thief who organizes masterful heists to keep his lifestyle going. Pulling off a daring heist against an armored car to steal bearer bonds and then sell them back to their original owner, things go wrong when the psychotic Waingro executes a guard and escapes Neil's attempt to kill him in retribution. Neil then plans a masterful bank heist, executing it almost flawlessly if not for Waingro and his arch-nemesis Steve van Zant tipping off the cops. After losing his friends and comrades, Neil even forsakes a chance to get to safety in order to avenge them by killing van Zant and Waingro before facing off with his nemesis, LAPD cop Vincent Hanna with whom he shares an incredible respect despite being on the opposite ends of the law.
Nate is Neil's personal advisor and fence, who regularly hooks Neil up with promising leads and strategies for his criminal heists. Nate concocts a brilliant win-win plan for Neil and his rival Van Zant, and arranges all the pieces to fall into place for both crooks to come out ahead; it is only Van Zant's petty arrogance that ruins the arrangement. When Neil is sent on the run by Van Zant's efforts, Nate continues to orchestrate affairs from behind the scenes to assist Neil in fleeing the country and assassinating Van Zant, Nate having played his cards so well that he faces no justice for any of his actions by the end of the story.
The audience already knows that Waingro is an unstable and violent character after he shoots the first guard during the armored car robbery at point-blank range for no good reason, but the scene where he kills the prostitute, then the scene where Hanna visits the crime scene of another one of Waingro's victims, exists solely to push him into this in order to demonstrate how Neil and his friends, while still violent criminals, are much better people than him, even though Neil and his crew members use assault rifles during the bank robbery shootout and bring down several cops, and kill at least one detective. This also serves to make a distinction, however; Neil and his crew take no pleasure in killing, viewing it as an unpleasant but necessary possibility of what they do, while Waingro is nothing but a massive Hate Sink who actively takes pleasure in sadistic killings.
At the same time, Neil and his crew cross it as well. They may only kill because of pragmatism, but it's made clear that this doesn't excuse the suffering they've caused. And even when they know how much more difficult and potentially dangerous the heist can be with the heat they're dealing with, all of them still wind up making the decision to go through with it anyway, even though they really don't need to.
Additionally, Jeremy Piven shows up as the doctor who treats Chris after the bank heist.
Tone Lōc as Richard Torena, a criminal who tries to extort Hanna to get rid of his competition before giving him what seems to be the most useless information imaginable. "Seems" being the key word as it turns out he's absolutely correct.
Rooting for the Empire: Neil has quite the following despite being ultimately a bank robber, murderer, and all-around bad guy. This was probably at least partially intentional, though, given the amount of Character Development he gets.
Vincent and Neil's conversation in the coffee shop. It was once the picture for the main page.
The bank shootout is almost as iconic as the above for its excellent cinematography and blistering energy, perfectly replicating the tension of a real-life shootout.
Spiritual Adaptation: Grand Theft Auto V is probably the closest we'll come to a Heat video game. The Payday games are a close second, with several heists in-game outright evoking this movie.
Vindicated by History: Though hardly a failure — the film was critically well-received and financially successful — it received virtually no awards attention. These days it's one of the most highly-regarded films of the 1990s.
Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: Eady and Neil have a one night stand. Then they get back together. Then she finds out that he is an armed robber who sprays the streets with automatic gunfire. She is still more than ready to abandon her life in LA and run off with him to parts unknown.
Lillian is a good person who tells Don she's proud of him for getting parole and working at a job he hates rather than fall back into his old ways. She's completely unaware of the larger plot, and the next thing she knows, she's finding out from the news that he participated in a bank robbery and was shot and killed by the police.
Eady ends up getting caught in the (metaphorical, fortunately) crossfire of the whole plot, simply because she ended up falling for the wrong guy without even going the All Girls Want Bad Boys route - she really thought Neil was a stand-up guy when they met. When he abandons her at the airport, she's left shocked into state of near-catatonia and it's hard not to feel bad for her.
L.A. Takedown
Complete Monster: Waingro is a psychopathic member of McClaren's team who turns a robbery into a bloodbath by slaughtering the guards. Escaping his own team's vengeance, Waingro sells out their heist to result in massive casualties in a shootout. Waingro is also a vicious Serial Killer in his spare time, murdering young women and prostitutes for nothing more than thrills, before closing the film killing McClaren and bragging about self-defense.
And it is glorious.