What about "Heat"? (repost)

Asked here.

I'm loathe to recommend Heat to you because I'm invested in it and don't want to see the negative (or even lukewarm) reviews later. I have the DVD and I have a place in my movie buff heart for the movie and while it is readily available, I feel I want to be stingy with it, like I own it, and see if the potential viewer is really interested and in the right mindset and likely to love it and join the club before I screen it, because as well-reviewed as the movie is, it's not guaranteed. It's moody and it is a Mann film and it's a long one. You choose to watch Heat, you're making a commitment.

That said, there are some movies that are like canonical milestones and cultural touchstones, like The Godfather, and Heat is one of them. Some say it is one of the best cops-and-robbers films ever made. DeNiro, Pacino and Kilmer, three of the finest actors in recent time, are in the movie interacting with each other and playing off each other in a kind of testosterone-fueled artistic tango (a big deal at the time and still a big deal now for movie buffs, like seeing Johnson and Jordan shoot hoops together). The characters are complex, as is the story and the dialogue. The look and feel of the movie is pure magic Mann. A lot has been said about the "chicken and the egg" dynamic to DeNiro's and Pacino's acting and the directing of Coppola and Scorcese. Do they portray criminals exceptionally well or do criminals play them (modeling themselves on DeNiro and Pacino and characters in the films of Coppola and Scorcese)? This movie would be one of the essential supporting arguments in an essay on that subject. Serious cinephiles have seen and talked about this movie. DeNiro fans have seen this movie. Mann fans have seen this movie. Guys who use movies as a model for adult masculine behavior and quote lines from The Godfather when giving advice have seen this movie. Also, Ashley Judd is in the movie and she is stunning. (The cast list is impressive and interesting.)

J. A. Lindstrom said:

Todd McCarthy of Variety referred to its "classic western-like structure," and pronounced the film "an ambitious study of the relativity of good and evil." Duane Byrge of the Hollywood Reporter called the film a "down-and-dirty noir crime story."' Kenneth Turan of the L.A. Times determined the film to be "a classic heist movie." And David Ansen of Newsweek found that Mann "reinvests the genre [the crime movie] with brooding modernist conviction." Michael Mann himself added to the indecision by proclaiming, "HEAT is a drama, not a genre piece." (Fuller)

Roger Ebert said:

It's not just an action picture. Above all, the dialogue is complex enough to allow the characters to say what they're thinking: They are eloquent, insightful, fanciful, poetic when necessary. They're not trapped with cliches. Of the many imprisonments possible in our world, one of the worst must be to be inarticulate - to be unable to tell another person what you really feel. These characters can do that. Not that it saves them.

Todd McCarthy said:

"Heat" occupies an exalted position among the countless contemporary crime films. Stunningly made and incisively acted by a large and terrific cast, Michael Mann's ambitious study of the relativity of good and evil stands apart from other films of its type by virtue of its extraordinarily rich characterizations and its thoughtful, deeply melancholy take on modern life. Draw of the star names and critical buzz will be undercut somewhat by pic's somberness and three-hour running time to result in sultry if not sizzling B.O., while foreign and long-term video prospects are potent.

Heat cast list from Wikipedia:

Cast

• Al Pacino as Lt. Vincent Hanna
• Robert De Niro as Neil McCauley
• Val Kilmer as Chris Shiherlis
• Jon Voight as Nate
• Tom Sizemore as Michael Cheritto
• Diane Venora as Justine Hanna
• Amy Brenneman as Eady
• Ashley Judd as Charlene Shiherlis
• Mykelti Williamson as Sgt. Drucker
• Wes Studi as Det. Cassals
• Ted Levine as Det. Bosko
• Dennis Haysbert as Donald Breedan
• William Fichtner as Roger Van Zant
• Natalie Portman as Lauren Gustafson
• Tom Noonan as Kelso
• Kevin Gage as Waingro*
• Hank Azaria as Alan Marciano
• Danny Trejo as Trejo
• Henry Rollins as Hugh Benny
• Tone Lōc as Richard Torena
• Jeremy Piven as Dr. Bob
• Xander Berkeley as Ralph

Links:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19951215/REVIEWS/512150302/1023
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117904741?refcatid=31
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1068182-heat/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_(1995_film)
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC43folder/Heat.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113277/

*Waingro is a separate and interesting story all its own.