Heat – Blu-ray Disc Review

Tags: Al Pacino, Ashley Judd, Hank Azaria, Henry Rollins, Jon Voight, Michael Mann, Natalie Portman, Robert De Niro, Ted Levine, Tom Sizemore, Val Kilmer, Warner, William Fichtner

has an average rating of 8.3 on IMDb
1080p in VC-1 on a 50gb disc
Dolby TrueHD 5.1
include DVD ports which are decent
–
– 1995
– 171 minutes
– Warner
–
This uses 34.8GB for the movie out of 38.7GB total.
Street Date: November 10th, 2009

Overall Verdict – Definitely Recommended for Fans

Buy it for $17.49 @ Amazon.com

— Review by: Justin Sluss & James Segars —

A calculating, careful, professional thief (Robert De Niro) and a tireless, temperamental, high strung detective (Al Pacino) go mono-a-mono in what is arguably Michael Mann’s finest film. Sporting some of the best (realistic) gunfights/shootouts ever captured on celluloid, a hypnotically moving story, and a excellent ensemble cast, Heat is a perfect film, and I truly believe that it is destined to become a timeless classic.

Heat weaves an epic story about two men on opposite sides of the law — a cop and robber story, something that has been explored, exploited and beaten to death over the years, but here Mann manages to liven things up, bringing a staggering degree of realism and personality to the characters, their jobs, and the Los Angeles backdrop. We get the feeling that De Niro and Pacino — while they only confront one another face-to-face a few times throughout the film — have a great deal of respect (not to be confused with admiration) for one another. They are opposites, but they are the same. They are professionals. They know how to do their jobs, they do them well, and they care about little else. Between them, they have weak ties to family and friends that are consequently put under further stress due to their obsession with their respective jobs, and ultimately outfoxing one another — if only to come out alive and walk away clean.

One of my favorite aspects of the film, is that neither of the professions are glorified. You won’t see De Niro flaunting his ill-gotten gains, and you won’t see Pacino grabbing a beer after work with this fellow officers. At the same time, both men are experts at their craft — law enforcement and professional thievery — but neither seems fulfilled or entirely happy with themselves or what they do. In fact it’s as if they are being steered with no choice in the matter, whether they are succumbing to fate or simply addicted to routine and habit. Their jobs are the only thing that keep them alive and in motion, and give their lives a purpose. This is one of Heat’s strongest narrative aspects because it makes the characters flawed, and thereby more realistic, balanced and vulnerable, which only makes you root for them more. As a viewer, we become deeply involved in the lives of these two men, yearning for them to let go, to walk away, to mend their failing relationships and seek a better life. In the end, the narrative is layered and woven together so strategically and precisely that we can’t help but align with both of the men equally, wanting neither to go down, but as the film approaches its climax, their eventual clash seems all the more inevitable leaving with no choice but to hold your breath until the very last shot.

In closing, its no secret that I love this film, and if I had to rank it amongst all of my favorites, it may just be up there in the top five (alongside The Godfather and Aliens). I know that many people think the film is flawed in some ways, or that Mann’s other works — specifically The Last of the Mohicans — are superior, but I simply don’t agree. In every conceivable way, I believe that Heat is a perfect film, and with every subsequent viewing I only continue to grow more resolute in that belief. It is a spectacular film that only seems to appreciate in value with each passing year. If you haven’t seen this film yet, be sure to pick this up on Blu-ray and prepare to have your mind blown.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the VC-1 codec on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte dual-layered Blu-ray Disc) in the 2.4:1 aspect ratio. First off, I want to state that this is a nice Hi-Def transfer but at the same time, it is NOT 100% perfect. It seems to me that lately Warner’s Blu-ray Disc releases that aren’t huge restorations like “The Wizard of Oz” or “Gone With the Wind” aren’t getting the best transfers to Hi-Def they could be getting. This problem, in all honesty, is likely because whoever has been in charge of the catalog titles (released this week in this batch especially) has honestly falling “asleep at the wheel” and missed some things when doing this Hi-Def transfer that even QA (Quality Assurance) has even missed out on themselves. It seems that they are now relying way too heavily on actually allowing computers to do the majority of these restorations or transfers to Hi-Def and not hiring enough “man power” to do these frame-by-frame like they used to back in “the good ‘ole days”. This could in all honesty be partly due to the decline in the American economy which has undoubtedly had an impact on Hollywood’s major motion picture studios home entertainment divisions, even the real class act folks like Warner have been hurt it seems. I’ll quit with this banter but at the same time just remind you, while this may have some really great looking shots, good amount of detail in comparison to previous DVD release, it still is not perfectly flawless.

Assessing the video quality, first you’ll notice the black level here is as solid as ink. The fleshtones are accurate with the faces of Pacino and De Niro looking just how we are accustomed them to looking, with just the right amount of hue. The color palette is vibrant despite the film being a really gritty dark (as in emotion, not lack of light) film. As mentioned above, this holds a really good amount of detail that was never present in previous DVD release(s). My real gripe here that I started on in the paragraph above has to do with the color tone of the film changing from it’s “cool” tone that it is for the majority (if not entirety) of the film at the very end of the film to a “warm” tone for a few seconds on a shot of Al Pacino’s character — examples found below as Screenshots.

Also, make no mistake, what I just told you, or shown you, about the end of the film is in no way a spoiler but the change of color tone from cool to warm back to cool is enough to really leave you with a bad taste in your mouth if you’ve “double dipped” and bought this to replace your DVD. I really wish Warner would hire some better people to work with the QA (Quality Assurance) or Quality Control, whatever they are calling it these days to have folks watch this and spot problems like this LONG before it should end up in my hands as a reviewer or your hands especially, as a paying consumer. For instance, another title that comes out the same week as this from Warner, “Logan’s Run” also has this exact same problem with the tone changing from a cool to warm tone where it was in no way intended to.

With that above I have said regarding the tiny bit upsetting flaw present, I cannot give this a perfect rating but I will give it an impressive “4.5 Star Rating” for overall video quality; as it does contain a great amount of detail and if it weren’t for the tiny flaw, I wouldn’t really have too much of anything to “gripe” about regarding the video’s transfer. Let’s hope in a year or two Warner gets their act together and decides to make us “double dip” yet again but finally reward us with a perfect video presentation like we’ve come to expect from them on films of this popularity. Also I’d like to ask Michael Mann why he didn’t notice this himself if this is “approved” by him, but I’m seriously doubting he’d take the time to answer me. Let’s hope he’s a little more involved in his other films that come to Blu-ray as this one seems to have been a tad bit neglected and it is a real shame because of how great a film this is.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround. Dolby Digital is included but only for foreign language tracks, no English Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is present, just a TrueHD mix. I don’t think this is going to cause any problems as I think that TrueHD will down-convert itself to Dolby Digital if your AVR (receiver) and/or Blu-ray Disc Player is not capable of decoding the format. Regardless, its safe to say that fans have been long anticipating this receiving a lossless 5.1 mix and it was totally worth the wait. This has some really awesome sound effects for explosions, gunshots and so forth. Dialogue is delivered distinctly, primarily from the front center channel and left and right front channels as well. I will complain that at times the dialogue feels that its been overly amplified which results in a tiny bit of hiss and/or distortion, but this only is present in the mix roughly a few minutes and keep in mind the film is 171 minutes total in length. The film’s music, sound effects, Foley and so forth make excellent use of the rear channel speakers and especially subwoofer (LFE).

One last thing, but don’t read this if you’ve never seen the film as it contains a bit of a “spoiler” of sorts, but not really, because it should come as no surprise as this is technically a “heist” type crime drama. The bank robbery scene about halfway through which includes a whole lot of gunshots is very intense here as you’d expect for it to be. I’m very happy to report that its making great use of the 5.1 and most importantly now a lossless audio codec. This easily blows away the Dolby Digital mix, as it contains a much more accurate dynamic range. The gunshots sound lifelike and almost at times can be a bit startling, especially during the bank robbery scene mentioned earlier. “Heat” is a thrill ride from start to finish as a film itself, so most importantly of all, I’m very happy to report to our readers that the audio presentation here is totally “up to par” with the film itself. “Heat” on Blu-ray Disc earns a very impressive “4.5 Star Rating” for overall audio quality. Its not quite as constantly “over the top” as the likes of the action films of today, but it is definitely an impressive sound mix for this action/drama. The mix really is loud and upfront when it needs to be but its also subtle at times.

Bonus Materials on this release are presented in Standard Definition video quality using VC-1 codec with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound 192kbps — unless otherwise noted.

• Audio Commentary by Writer/Producer/Director Michael Mann
• “The Making of Heat” (59:13) is very in-depth and totally worth the watch if you never saw this on the previous DVD release. It is split up into 3 sections which I’ve listed below with their individual runtimes as well, but keep in mind these runtimes are include in the 59 minutes 13 seconds above as the total runtime, these are not in addition to that runtime.
• “True Crime: Recalling the Real-Life Chicago Cop and Criminal Whose Exploits Inspired the Movie” (14:45)
• “Crime Stories: The Screenplay’s 20-Year History and How the Movie Finally Got Greenlit” (20:26)
• “Into the Fire: Filming in L.A., Cast Training, Shooting the Climactic Downtown Heist and Post-Production” (24:01)
• “Pacino and De Niro: The Conversation” (9:54)
• “Return to the Scene of the Crime” (12:02) is a retrospective looking back on the locations in Los Angeles where the film was shot then and now.
• “Deleted Scenes” (9:31)
• Theatrical Trailers (6:44)

Overall the bonus materials are sure nothing more than just DVD ports but they are very in-depth and worth watching. Fans who didn’t previously own this on the most recent DVD release will get some enjoyment out of these supplemental materials.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

• Digg this!
• Share this on Technorati
• Post this to MySpace
• Share this on Facebook
• Tweet This!
• Subscribe to the comments for this post?
• Share this on del.icio.us