Today, Heat (1995) is still regarded as one of the greatest if not the greatest heist movies of all time. Director Christopher Nolan references the film in his movie The Dark Knight, saying Heat was a huge inspiration for his much loved Batman movie.
Perhaps the most iconic scene in the movie is when the two main characters, played by Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, meet for coffee in the highly stylized scene. Al Pacino, playing Detective Vincent Hanna meets with Neil McCauley an expert thief and ex-con. With each character on the other side of the law, the two begin speaking about their pasts, prison stretches, marriages falling apart multiple times, and all of this comes in a bizarrely casual conversation. The audience was so involved in this scene because of the close camera work. Only single shot close ups of Vincent and Neil were used, the establishing two shot was not used to keep the audience engaged in the personal moment.
This scene came to Michael Mann because the cop who had this interaction in real life was on set with Mann to tell him exactly how it went. Chicago Police Officer Chuck Adamson sat down and had coffee with a thief named McCauley in the late 1960’s. The dialogue in the movie is the real dialogue that was said at the meeting. This authenticity makes the scene much more believable hooks the audience deeper. The scenario in reality played out very similarly to the movie – McCauley pulled off a heist and was met in the street by the Chicago police. Adamson killed McCauley on the front lawn of a homeowner near the heist scene.
The Focused Lens 