Heat – The Action Re-Cut

joebshmoe feb 13 2009

ok… i’m gonna say something crazy here… the ending where he lives? ridiculous. i didn’t like this at all. it didn’t actually *feel* like 6 months later and i think something would need to be inserted here to give the idea of a lapse of time.

also… i just can’t live without the airport shootout. i think that is pretty essential.

back to the review: fantastic. i really enjoyed the removal of the family and drama. i don’t think the intensity suffers much (if at all) of this element being removed but only a viewer without that knowledge could really chime in here. as usual with HUGE edits (what? like a whole hour? 30%? of the movie?) there can be some disastrous plot holes and odd pacing, but this edit suffers none of those elements.

i enjoyed this fanedit and think it is a great example of “different but not better”. heat is, of course, a great movie and this edit while showing a COMPLETELY different movie (ACTION!) doesn’t actually make it better, just fantastically different.

and, although i didn’t care for the alternate ending, the ability to choose either version from the menu via branching is a great touch! this is one of those few moments where (for me) presentation impacts my rating. 4/5 -> 5/5

technical quality 5/5
fanediting 5/5
original 4.5/5
fanedit 4.5/5

5/5

I always found this movie to be boring because of all the dialog that went nowhere and frankly, at almost 3 hours (2 hours 50 minutes) it felt like a chore.
This edit contains all the action, and less side stories that went on for too long.
Also, much happier with this ending.

brauventura dec 17 2009

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

moe_syzlak may 1 2009

I enjoyed this a lot. I liked Heat a lot in its original version, but the scenes with Hanna and his family are not very good. I like the idea of Hanna having relationship issues and having trouble being close to people though. It mirrored Neil’s story and that was one of the things that made it more than just a cops & robber flick. That said, this is much tighter and, while it is now just a cops & robbers flick, it is a very good one. With this edit the lack of the diner scene is not missed. However, the scene is fairly necessary IMO if you use the ending where Neil leaves Edie without hesitation. That sort of underscores the tragic nature of the choices of not just Neil, but also Hanna.

As to the alternate ending…. SPOILERS … I think it works fairly well. There is one continuity error in that the man at the front desk (not to mention the front desk itself) is visible when it is supposed to be the LA Airport hotel AND when it is supposed to be a Boston hotel. Also, the grammar for the captions is just terrible. It’s a shame to see so much good work go into this and then have such careless grammatical errors take you out of the movie. I also felt the epilogue for Hanna was a bit over-the-top with the cocaine and losing his job. And the final caption on Waingro and Neil is not necessary IMO.

END SPOILERS

But this is a great edit and one I’ll watch more than once, though probably not with the alternate ending.

It's been over a decade since I was bored senseless by my own copy of Heat, so I was definitely looking forward to revisiting it in this pared-down version. While I certainly wasn't bored this time around, as all the major action sequences are intact, at an hour shaved off, it didn't necessarily feel like I was watching a complete film. I certainly didn't miss DeNiro and his gang experiencing endless criminal angst over their relationships (Thief already exists and is perfect, thanks, Michael Mann) but Al Pacino's involvement in this edit seems abrupt and many of his best scenes are missing, so he feels like a guest-star in a movie he's theoretically co-headlining. In all, a fun viewing experience but if I go back to Heat for a third time, I'll try out a different edit to see if I can get a bit more Al in the mix.