Heat (Blu-ray) (1995)

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General		Extras
Category	Crime	Audio Commentary-Michael Mann Deleted Scenes Featurette-True Crime Featurette-Crime Stories Featurette-Into The Fire Featurette-De Niro and Pacino: The Confrontation Featurette-Return To The Scene Of The Crime Theatrical Trailer-Surprise Of A Lifetime Theatrical Trailer-Two Actors Collide Theatrical Trailer-Closing In
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	170:27
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Michael Mann
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Al Pacino Robert De Niro Val Kilmer Jon Voight Tom Sizemore Diane Venora Natalie Portman
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	?	Music	Elliot Goldenthal

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 French Dolby Digital 5.1 German Dolby Digital 5.1 Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Portuguese Dolby Digital 2.0 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired French German Spanish Dutch Spanish Portuguese Danish Finnish Norwegian Swedish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes, mildly
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The plot is a complex web of interweaving stories that begins on one quiet day in Los Angeles. Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) is a professional thief who runs a well-coordinated unit consisting of such  men as Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer), Michael Cheritto (Tom Sizemore), and Trejo (Danny Trejo). For reasons never elaborated on, the crew have taken on a fifth gunman by the name of Waingro (Kevin Gage). This turns out to be a mistake, as Waingro turns out to be a professional only in the sense that he participates in thieveries for money, and his itchy trigger finger escalates what should be a simple armed robbery with malicious damage into a murder one beef, as Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) later puts it. Hanna is a detective who came into the police force straight from war, and has a reputation for dogged persistence at his work to the exclusion of his social life and, more importantly, home life.

    Said home life consists of a disintegrating marriage to Justine (Diane Venora). Justine's daughter from a previous marriage, Lauren (Natalie Portman) is undergoing her own crisis as her biological father is repeatedly skipping out on custodial visits with her, which manifests in a series of mood swings that made me feel empathetic to Justine, and you know that is saying a lot. Meanwhile, McCauley's fencer, Nate (Jon Voight), proposes to attempt selling the bonds stolen in the heist we just mentioned back to their rightful owner, a businessman called Roger Van Zant (William Fichtner). He also tells McCauley that a fellow by the name of Kelso (Tom Noonan) has a big score that might well pay enough for McCauley and his merry band to retire and give up this life of crime. But real life has a way of getting in the way, and soon the whole affair descends into a game of cat and mouse where both participants have mutated into super-tigers.

    I could go on and on about all this film has to offer, such as the ridiculous fight in the closing stages of the film where the 250-pound Henry Rollins gets his dot kicked by the 5'4"-standing-on-his-wallet Al Pacino, but aside from the architecture described above, the principal joy in watching Heat for the first time is discovering it all for the first time. As I said, the cast is top-notch, but some of the things I discovered on this viewing also lead me to admire the technical side of this piece. Making a film that holds the interest of an audience for the entire running length is a difficult job at the best of times, but making a film of slightly less than three hours with a pace like this that keeps the interest of the viewing audience is an achievement that few directors in the history of the medium can lay claim to. If crime thrillers are your bag, then Heat should be considered compulsory viewing.

    The real question, since we are talking about Heat, is whether this new release of the film is the kind of presentation it deserves.

Video

    This transfer is sharp. Sharp enough that the shades of colour in actors' eyes are visible in dark scenes, to use my favourite yardstick. Had I never made the jump to BD, I would not know that in the right lighting, Kevin Gage's eyes turn a yellowed baby-shit brown (another shot shows they are a light blue). Other, more gruesome details such as blood spatters and wounds show up with a clarity no other medium can presently offer. Shadow detail is very good, but often purposefully limited. Suffice to say that the detail the director wants to share is clear and leaping out of the screen. No low-level noise is present.

    The colours in the transfer can be split into two schemes. Daytime scenes and sequences that take place in well-lit locations such as the insides of houses or other places where one would expect bright light are vivid and vibrant, with plenty of colour to go around. Scenes that take place in the dark, on the other hand, are very drab, with only the important subjects of the shots brightly lit. Skin tones are well done and consistent. No problems were evident with bleeding or misregistration.

    Compression artefacts were not noted in this transfer. The transfer is encoded in the VC-1 codec, with the bitrate varying between the mid teens and high twenties. Grain, what little there appears to have been in the source, appears to have been well-managed. Film-to-video artefacts are where this transfer basically takes a big dump upon previous SD versions, with neither hide nor hair of aliasing evident at any point during the running time. And believe you me, with all the road markings, car chrome, power lines, and wire fences on display during this feature, the lack of aliasing in the transfer certainly was not for lack of opportunity. Film artefacts consisted of the occasional very small black or white mark on the picture that was generally difficult to notice, leave alone find objectionable.

    Subtitles are offered in about a dozen languages, including an English for the Hearing Impaired option. I watched the film with this option enabled. The subtitles do truncate some particularly lengthy lines of dialogue, but they are otherwise fairly accurate to the spoken word.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Now, anyone who has read my reviews will know they can expect a lot of jabber from me about how the video, audio, or both basically makes me wonder how anyone can continue to watch other media. Heat is no exception, within certain limitations.

    A total of six soundtracks are presented on this BD-Video. The first, and default, soundtrack is the original English soundtrack in Dolby TrueHD 5.1, which I listened to. Also present are dubs in French Dolby Digital 5.1, German Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, and Portuguese Dolby Digital 2.0, with an audio commentary in Dolby Digital 2.0 for good measure.

    One problem with this transfer is that the Dolby TrueHD soundtrack is rather quiet compared to the Dolby Digital dubs on offer. I had to turn my receiver's volume up about six points above my normal listening position. The helicopter sequences prove that this is more of a problem because of the much wider dynamic range (ie the difference between the softest and loudest parts) that the lossless compression offers. Nonetheless, the fact that this soundtrack sounds so subdued compared to other Dolby TrueHD tracks that have been offered from the same distributor does cause some minor concern.

    Dialogue was always clear and easy to understand, even more so than has ever previously been the case. Separation of the elements, namely dialogue, sound effects, and music is very good. This is partly because the sound design of this film is strangely reminiscent of films from times like the early 1980s, with a one-element-at-a-time approach. When the action does ramp up and multiple elements come out of the dugout, however, the soundtrack shines so bright it is blinding. No problems with audio sync were noted.

    The score music is credited to Elliot Goldenthal. Although it is fairly minimal and very subtle, there are moments when it comes out into the foreground and really drives what would have otherwise been some very ordinary shots. As with the dialogue, the lossless compression just makes it that much more of a treat to listen to.

    The surround channels are used frequently, but very subtly, for ambient sound, directional gunfire, music, bystander screams, and other effects of this nature. Although the surround channels are used somewhat sparingly and long sequences go by where they seem to be doing nothing, their use in the soundtrack is quite beneficial. If I could sum this soundtrack up in a word, it would be "authentic", as in the soundtrack perfectly matches the onscreen action both in content and in surround use. Now, granted, the soundtrack does become slightly monaural in nature during quiet dialogue sequences, but that suits the style of the film. At 107:35, a gun battle in the streets begins, and the sequence one should use from this film to demonstrate why one has a lossless audio decoder comes out in force. Make no mistake about it, this is the way Heat should be heard. Even if it is not what we enthusiasts normally look for in a soundtrack.

    The subwoofer is used more sparingly than the surround channels, only really making itself known during car crashes, gunshots, and other bassy effects. It was well integrated with the rest of the soundtrack, and sorely appreciated in such moments as the aforementioned gun battle.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    A small helping of extras are presented on this disc. All of them are standard definition.

Menu

Audio Commentary - Michael Mann (Director/Producer/Writer)

Deleted Scenes

    A total of eleven scenes that were shot but not included in the final cut of the film are presented in their own section of the Top Menu. All are presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and are not 16:9-enhanced. Total running time is a mere nine minutes and thirty seconds. All were cut from the finished product for a very good reason.

Featurette - True Crime

    Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with film footage in 2.35:1, and Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

Featurette - Crime Stories

    Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with film footage in 2.35:1, and Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

Featurette - Into The Fire

    Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with film footage in 2.35:1, and Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

Featurette - De Niro and Pacino: The Confrontation

    Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with film footage in 2.35:1, and Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. This featurette is about that scene in the diner where the two leads sit and talk. Which would be a great scene if it had not been completely blown away earlier by the aforementioned stare-into-the-camera sequence. Ever get the feeling that you have emphasised something a little too much?

Featurette - Return To The Scene Of The Crime

    Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with film footage in 2.35:1, and Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. Worth a look for anyone who is interested in what goes on in the pre-production stage of filmmaking.

Trailer - Surprise Of A Lifetime

    Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1, not 16:9-enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. A lot of snippets from dialogue that was not included in the finished film are heard. Of those lines, I can only say I am glad they were left on the cutting room floor.

Trailer - Two Actors Collide

    Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1, not 16:9-enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. As the menu title implies, this trailer emphasises the fact that there are a couple of scenes in which the two leads share screen time.

Trailer - Closing In

    Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1, not 16:9-enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

    The video transfer is excellent.

    The audio transfer is very good.

    The extras are all carried over from a previous Special Edition DVD, therefore mostly SD, therefore mostly not worth the bother.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall