Heat

I found this on someone's list of all-time great heist films. De Niro is the heist crew leader and Pacino the cop who is chasing him. Add in Jon Voight, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Ashley Judd, Amy Brenneman, Dennis Haysbert and Natalie Portman. This is fun. And nearly the polar opposite to The Yellow Handkerchief. Heat is 100% action with, at best, 1 dimensional characters. Every character is pretty stereotypical. Pacino is the gritty, driven detective who "Says what he means and does what he says", De Niro the criminal mastermind who has no attachments that "he can't leave in 30 seconds". The puppy dog assistant criminal, devoted criminal girlfriend, struggling parolee, enamored new girlfriend, etc. Everyone has their role and plays it and only it. Of course, in this case, there is not really a need to have multidimensional characters since the tense game of cat and mouse holds all of our attention. And you know this is done well because you are simultaneously rooting for both De Niro and Pacino to win the battle. You really want there to be some sort of outcome where they are both fulfilled and satisfied. You will have to watch to see whether this is the case.

4 stars (out of 5)