Following news of his follow-up novel to the 1995 classic heist thriller Heat along with word that Heat 2 is coming to screens sooner than you’d think, Michael Mann released a treat for fans of the original film on his official Twitter account. The acclaimed director shared a photo storyboard from a rehearsal of the infamous bank shootout where Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) and the police corner Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) and his crew after they try to make off with one last big score.
The storyboard Mann shared takes place before the chaos of the shootout really kicks off with the photos showing Hanna as he approaches the bank and prepares to get his man. He’s seen leaving his vehicle and briskly, yet carefully, making his way to where McCauley and company are going to emerge onto the street. Using the corners of buildings to sneak up to the bank without alerting the robbers, he lines up beside his LAPD colleagues, waiting for the perfect shot to take down the master criminals. Even in the setup for such a big moment, the scene is painstakingly planned out. Hanna scans his surroundings, and we get a wider shot of the normal city street that’s about to become a battleground.
While the highlight of Heat is the now-famous restaurant scene where De Niro and Pacino’s characters finally face each other, the bank scene stands out for both its realistic tactics, with McCauley’s crew laying down cover fire for one another as they methodically make their way towards a getaway vehicle and for how action-packed it is. It’s the culmination of everything that the film was working towards and the careful planning and blocking that went into creating such an iconic sequence are shown throughout each panel of the storyboard.
Thanks to the excellent cinematography among other things, Heat is widely regarded as a masterpiece of cinema by Mann with a star-studded cast that features Pacino and De Niro at their peak alongside fellow star Val Kilmer. The influential film followed the game of cat and mouse between Hanna and McCauley as their dedication to their conflicting career paths also affects the people around them. Because of how beloved Hanna and McCauley are and how much of their lives have been left untapped, Mann’s follow-up looks to go back six years before their fated clash to explore their pasts while also following up on the events of the film to see where Kilmer’s Chris Shiherlis and others end up.
Overall, it’s been a great summer for the film as fans are now also able to see it in crisp 4K Ultra HD with a new release, and it got the spotlight during the Tribeca Film Festival where Pacino and De Niro reunited for a panel on the classic. Check out Mann’s storyboard below to see how one of its most iconic scenes came together.
