• Home
  • Movies
  • Music
  • TV
  • Video Games
  • Wrestling
  • Topics
  • Latest Comments on Cult of Whatever
Search
Cult of Whatever logo
  • Movies
    Featured
    • The Living Daylights: Timothy Dalton as James Bond

      The Living Daylights is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 28, 2022
      Movie Blogs
    Recent
    • The Muppet Christmas Carol: Michael Caine as Scrooge

      The Muppet’s Christmas Carol remains the gold standard for the book

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 20, 2022
    • Nightmare Before Christmas 1993 1

      2022’s Christmas Movie Watchlist!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 18, 2022
    • Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Poster

      REVIEW: GDT’s Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 14, 2022
    • Troll: Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora

      REVIEWS: TROLL and TROLL HUNTER -A giant creature double feature!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 5, 2022
    • Harry with The Hendersons

      Harry and the Hendersons is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2022
    • Fantastic Four Poster

      The five best “rogues galleries” in superherodom! (part 3)

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 28, 2022
  • Music
    Random
    • Beatles Usa 1964

      50 years ago the Beatles said "The End"

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 31, 2019
      Music
    Recent
    • The Beatles: Get Back

      What GET BACK reveals about the Beatles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 15, 2021
    • Simon And Garfunkel at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam1982

      The Boxer is a song about being conned

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 4, 2021
    • Lady Gaga: Chromatica Album Cover

      Lady Gaga’s discography is totally out of order

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 3, 2021
    • Michael Jackson Thriller Album Cover

      Thirty years ago music fans said “Nevermind” to Michael Jackson

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 21, 2021
    • Queen II Album Cover

      On Queen’s The Miracle, and the importance of track ordering

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2021
    • Linda Paul Mccartney 1976

      50 years ago, McCartney dropped “Lennon” and went solo…

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 5, 2020
  • TV
    Featured
    • Big Sky S03e05: Kylie Bunbury, J. Anthony Pena and Katheryn Winnick as Cassie Dewell, Mo Poppernak and Jenny Hoyt

      Big Sky S03E05 Review: Flesh and Blood - Glamping!

      By Salome G
      | October 22, 2022
      TV Blogs
    Recent
    • Big Sky S03e10: Gang

      Big Sky S03E10 Review: A Thin Layer of Rock – Break time…

      By Salome G
      | December 11, 2022
    • Rick And Morty: S01e03

      Is Beth from Rick and Morty a bigger sociopath than Rick?

      By Jason Collins
      | December 7, 2022
    • Big Sky S03e09: Dedee Pfeiffer and Cree as Denise and Emily

      Big Sky S03E09: Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire – Stalling

      By Salome G
      | December 1, 2022
    • The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special: Dave Bautista and Pom Klementieff as Drax and Mantis

      REVIEW: The GOTG Holiday Special is a sweet prelude to next year’s finale

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 27, 2022
    • The Midnight Club S01: The Gang

      The Midnight Club S1 Review – A series of unfortunate events

      By Salome G
      | November 24, 2022
    • Big Sky S03e08: Reba McEntire as Sunny Barnes

      Big Sky S03E08 Review: Duck Hunting – I love a weirdo.

      By Salome G
      | November 19, 2022
  • Video Games
    Featured
    • Arkham Knight

      Batman: Arkham Knight - A fitting end to a trilogy

      By Tom Farr
      | July 18, 2015
      Video Game Reviews
    Recent
    • Splatoon 3 Screenshot

      A trio of Nintendo Switch reviews!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 28, 2022
    • Nintendo Switch Logo

      Looking ahead to the Switch 2: Predictions and Wants

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 15, 2022
    • Legend Of Zelda

      Can a Legend of Zelda movie work?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 6, 2022
    • Super Mario 64

      Which system had the better launch: A battle of four Nintendo consoles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2021
    • Luigi's Mansion

      Happy twentieth to Nintendo’s underrated gem, the Gamecube

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 18, 2021
    • Metroid Dread

      Metroid Dread – Post Game analysis and sequel needs

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 29, 2021
  • Wrestling
    Featured
    • AEW All Out 2022: Keith Lee. Anthony Bowens, Max Caster and Billy Gunn

      AEW All Out 2022 - Review and (wild) Speculation!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 5, 2022
      AEW
    Recent
    • WWE WrestleMania 38: Cody Rhodes vs. Seth Rollins

      Was 2022 the wildest year in wrestling history?

      By Matthew Martin
      | January 4, 2023
    • AEW Full Gear 2022: Young Bucks and Kenny Omega Elite Entrance

      AEW Full Gear 2022 – A needed reset at the end of a tough year

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 22, 2022
    • WWE Survivor Series 1997: Bret Hart

      The Montreal Screwjob – Twenty Five Years Later

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 8, 2022
    • AEW Grand Slam 2022: Jungle Boy and Rey Fenix

      AEW GRANDSLAM 2022 showcased the present and future of the promotion

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 25, 2022
    • AEW All Out 2022: CM Punk

      AEW All Out Fall Out: All the CM Punk drama that’s fit to print!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 5, 2022
    • AEW Dark: Ricky Starks (22/09/20)

      The future of the AEW World Championship

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 14, 2022
  • Topics
    • site logo
    Latest
    • Was 2022 the wildest year in wrestling history?
    • The Muppet's Christmas Carol remains the gold standard for the book
    • 2022's Christmas Movie Watchlist!
    • REVIEW: GDT's Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!
    • Big Sky S03E10 Review: A Thin Layer of Rock - Break time...
    • Is Beth from Rick and Morty a bigger sociopath than Rick?

    Heat and Casino are both still awesome, twenty-five years later

    By Matthew Martin
    | August 25, 2020
    Movie Blogs

    This year, CultOfWhatever is looking back on some of the most influential, transformative, genre-defining, or otherwise cult-favorite films of 1995.

    Believe it or not, that was twenty-five years ago.

    1995 was not the biggest year in cinema, nor even the biggest “movie” year of the ’90s, but it was still a year that saw the release of several high profile films. Some of those movies have disappeared from our collective consciousness, while others have endured over the years. Already we’ve looked at Mortal Kombat, a cult classic if ever there was one. It was hardly an award-winner, that’s for sure, nor was it renowned for its score, its acting, or its writing. In contrast, Braveheart dominated at the Oscars and remains a beloved film even today.

    Waterworld, however, struggled to leave an impact after release and only now is starting to find a little love. In April we looked at a movie based on an incredibly popular children’s property and noted how Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie came out at the peak of the Ranger fad. After that, we considered how Tall Tale was, by design, a dated and old fashioned property the moment it released, before shooting for the moon with the delightfully thrilling and uplifting Apollo 13.

    Meanwhile, The Usual Suspects is a movie that seems to get worse with every viewing, despite being so great on its first watch. It was a crime movie the likes of which we’d never seen before, but the same can’t be said for this month’s duo of movies…

    Michael Mann’s Heat and Martin Scorsese’s Casino came out only three weeks apart from each other back in the winter of 1995. Both starred Robert DeNiro, and both can loosely be categorized in the “crime” genre, but other than that they’re very different films.

    Casino Poster

    Casino’s reputation has struggled in comparison to other classic Scorsese films. The movie never seems to get the respect it deserves, probably because it so closely imitates Scorsese’s more lauded and famous gangster movie: Goodfellas. When you dig into it, however, you see that Casino is not actually Goodfellas Redux. It’s more like Goodfellas on crack. In a lot of ways, it’s Scorsese relying on familiar storytelling tropes in order to do some things as a director he’d never attempted before. The first hour or more of the movie is basically a series of montages within montages with almost uninterrupted music, and even multiple narrators overlapping.

    Looking beyond the “plot,” in a lot of ways, Casino is not a “Robert DeNiro” movie so much as it as a vehicle for Joe Pesci. Granted, Pesci’s character doesn’t make it to the end of the picture, but he commands the scene whenever he’s present, has all the best lines, and has the second-strongest arc (after Sharon Stone, who does her very best work bar none in this movie).

    Casino Robert De Niro

    Casino is hurt by the fact that it’s too similar to Goodfellas in terms of tone, style, subject matter, etc. I get that. But, to me, those three hours just sail by, which is something I can’t say for the other movie this month. Heat seems like it’s got about thirty minutes of flab that could be cut, making it a perfect two hours and twenty-minute movie. As it is, it’s just a really great two hour and fifty-minute movie. Casino however has three hours that sail by, and the real secret to the movie’s ability to grab hold and not let go is the editing. The common complaint against Casino is that it’s just “montage after montage,” but when you see it as a storytelling/directorial experiment by Marty Scorsese, it makes it easier to appreciate. The film really does those montages masterfully. Casino still holds up as a fantastic display of a brilliant director’s skills; it will never escape the shadow of Goodfellas, maybe, but it doesn’t have to. If viewed on its own, the movie deserves all the praise it can get.

    And it’s still awesome, twenty-five years later.

    Heat derives its title from the feeling of pressure bubbling up within a criminal gang led by Robert DeNiro. After a string of successful jobs, the group finally starts to “feel the heat” from an obsessive cop (played by Al Pacino). The film is most famous for offering the first on-screen interaction between DeNiro and Pacino, though the scene in question is hardly the star of the movie. It’s a great bit of scene-chewing, but the movie isn’t really about Pacino vs DeNiro (despite that being the major marketing pitch). Sure, Pacino’s cop is after DeNiro’s thief, but the movie is really about how both men are mirrors of one another. The infamous “diner scene” where the two of them meet and talk was an inspiration for Chris Nolan in The Dark Knight (the whole movie itself is inspired by Heat, in fact). But the interrogation scene between Batman and Joker is packed with so much more tension, has so much more action, and leads directly to the pivotal turning point of the movie (the death of Rachel and the birth of Two-Face).

    Heat Poster

    In contrast, the diner scene in Heat is low-key. That’s by design, by the way. The viewer isn’t supposed to wonder when Al is going to make his move to arrest Robert, nor should we worry that Robert will make his move to kill Al. The film already establishes that Al’s character is not going to make an arrest until he has enough evidence to put Robert’s thief away for good. Likewise, the movie establishes that Robert, while ready and willing to kill, also doesn’t like being sloppy or reckless. So there’s no tension in the scene, and there’s no action to speak of, and the aftermath doesn’t lead directly to any major or turning point moment.

    So what’s the big deal?

    Heat Al Pacino Robert De Niro

    The big deal is that it shows us how these two, to repeat the cliche, “are not so different.” They’re both obsessed, driven, loners, married to their work. They both say they won’t stop till they’ve finished what they set out to do, that they’ll run through anyone that gets in their way, and that they’ll (sadly, they confess) kill the other one if it comes to it. In a lot of ways, you almost want to see them smile and shake hands at the end of their cup of coffee. The movie naturally follows that throughline, taunting Al Pacino’s character with a crumbling marriage as a result of his obsession, and giving Robert DeNiro with a new love interest, tempting him to abandon his obsession. As the heat ratchets up on DeNiro, Pacino loses his hold on his personal life. He sacrifices that aspect of his humanity to score the arrest, which comes after DeNiro is forced to abandon his love interest in a last-ditch attempt to flee.

    Heat gets a lot of praise for its action scenes and tension, and it has both done very well, but it’s the character arc of both men that really steals the show. Michael Mann can be hit and miss when it comes to picking projects to work on, but in this case (a movie he wrote, by the way), he nailed it. Heat is every bit the action-packed thriller its reputation lauds it to be, and it’s every bit the brilliant character showpiece for Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro that fans craved.

    And it too is still awesome, twenty-five years later.

    Share this article:

    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit

    Tags

    1995 MoviesCrime Movies

    COMMENTS

    Please read our Commenting Policy before you join in with the discussion.

    Note: If you have email notifications enabled, please check your email spam folders to ensure emails are not missed.

    Subscribe
    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    Notify of
    guest

    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    guest

    18 Comments
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    tonyD
    tony
    2 years ago

    I just realized that Al Pacino’s career spans over five decades. Some of his movies that I enjoyed were The Godfather and The Insider. After reading this, I am more eager to watch The Heat!

    0
    Reply
    Richarda
    Richarda
    2 years ago
    Reply to  tony

    Yes, the man was an amazing actor! 5 decades. I didn’t watch either of these but after reading this review I will. I loved The Godfather! I have not watched The Insider.

    0
    Reply
    sammariD
    sammari
    2 years ago
    Reply to  Richarda

    In Al Pacino, we see an actor who has been consistent in his career. You don’t see many of them who have a unique style as his (intense and explosive). I loved his role in Any Given Sunday.

    0
    Reply
    FastnlD
    Fastnl
    2 years ago
    Reply to  Richarda

    The Godfather was my favorite movie for such a long time. I would quote lines from the movie at any given time! I thought Pacino was brilliant in it.

    0
    Reply
    PersephoneD
    Persephone
    2 years ago

    I haven’t seen either of these movies, but they both sound like good choices. I usually love watching DeNiro and Pesci together. I’ll have to see if these movies are on Netflix.

    0
    Reply
    loebD
    loeb
    2 years ago
    Reply to  Persephone

    I watched Heat back in the day, and agree that it is a masterpiece. Thankfully, it is on Netflix, and I am keen on re-watching it. I will have to find out more about Casino.

    0
    Reply
    ThatcherD
    Thatcher
    2 years ago

    I felt like James Woods, Robert DeNiro, and Sharon Stone were the standouts in Casino, while Joe Pesci came across like a caricature of a mobster. He oversold it.

    0
    Reply
    BostonAustinD
    BostonAustin
    2 years ago

    Heat was a good movie but somewhat of a slow burn. Al Pacino and Joe Pesci drew me in, but I also thought Natalie Portman gave a compelling performance as the stepdaughter with mental health issues.

    0
    Reply
    DrewsiD
    Drewsi
    2 years ago
    Reply to  BostonAustin

    Natalie played an amazing role in this movie. I totally believed that she really did have mental issues. She was great. I though Al was great too. I liked this one better than Casino.

    0
    Reply
    KkelieD
    Kkelie
    2 years ago

    While I have enjoyed these reviews of the older movies, I wasn’t a big fan of either of these. I do like Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro but these just weren’t that great (in my opinion).

    0
    Reply
    ThatcherD
    Thatcher
    2 years ago
    Reply to  Kkelie

    I usually think they pair surprisingly well together, but Joe Pesci couldn’t pull off his mob role in Casino and I thought he pulled Robert DeNiro down in their scenes. It just didn’t work. What is your favourite film with the duo?

    0
    Reply
    Richarda
    Richarda
    2 years ago
    Reply to  Thatcher

    Oh no. The reviews are mixed. I can’t believe with all these big names actors and actresses that it wasn’t that great. I usually like Joe Pesci too.

    0
    Reply
    FrankOz45D
    FrankOz45
    2 years ago

    I thought Heat was great! It had so much action, kept me on the edge of my seat. I loved Pacino and DeNiro in this one. They played off each other brilliantly.

    0
    Reply
    FastnlD
    Fastnl
    2 years ago
    Reply to  FrankOz45

    I thought Heat was great too! I thought the two played well with each other. I love it when actors do this. It makes the movie so much better when there is a good working chemistry.

    0
    Reply
    ShelbiiD
    Shelbii
    2 years ago

    Honestly I didn’t really like Casino that much. I love Deniro and didn’t think it was the greatest movie he is in. I did love Goodfellas though!

    0
    Reply
    FrankOz45D
    FrankOz45
    2 years ago
    Reply to  Shelbii

    I wasn’t a fan of the movie either. I thought it was one of his worst ones. I mean, it just wasn’t him, a bad role. It’s not a movie I would go back and watch.

    0
    Reply
    DrewsiD
    Drewsi
    2 years ago
    Reply to  FrankOz45

    I agree 100% with this. I thought it was one of his worse roles. I definitely would not watch it again. DeNiro is one of my favorite actors too.

    0
    Reply
    FastnlD
    Fastnl
    2 years ago
    Reply to  Drewsi

    I’m in agreement with Casino. I was pretty hyped up to see it back then too. It really didn’t live up to the hype. I thought it was one of his worst ones.

    0
    Reply

    You might also like

    • Every Quentin Tarantino movie ranked!

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 31, 2019
    • Repeat Reboot: The Sequel

      By Henry Higgins
      | April 27, 2015
    • A discussion on Revenant (spoilers) and Leo DiCaprio’s Oscar snubs

      By Matthew Martin
      | January 22, 2016

    FIND THE TOPICS YOU WANT...

    Movie Topics

    Recommended for you

    • REVIEW: GDT’s Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 14, 2022
    • REVIEWS: TROLL and TROLL HUNTER -A giant creature double feature!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 5, 2022
    • Harry and the Hendersons is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2022
    • The five best “rogues galleries” in superherodom! (part 3)

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 28, 2022
    • Spirited Away remains Studio Ghibli’s “greatest” film

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 16, 2022
    • Read the Book Instead: The most disappointing book-to-film adaptations

      By Oliver Johnston
      | September 20, 2021
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate Disclosure
    • Cookie Policy and Settings
    • Terms of Use
    • Photo Credits
    • RSS
    All Cult of Whatever articles, logos, illustrations and graphics are copyright CultOfWhatever.com. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. © 2021 CultOfWhatever. All Rights Reserved.
    • facebook
    • twitter
    wpDiscuz