Tag DeNiro

Heat

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

Imagine if somebody made a crime thriller that’s actually two movies in perfect balance: a cop movie and a heist movie doing an intricate dance around each other until they collide in an explosion of gunfire and existential crisis. That’s Michael Mann’s “Heat,” a film that treats both sides of the law with such careful attention that you’ll find yourself rooting for everyone and no one at the same time.

Al Pacino plays Lt. Vincent Hanna, a detective who’s married to his job (and also his third wife, but the job is definitely his true love). Robert De Niro is Neil McCauley, a professional thief who lives by the motto “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” Spoiler alert: both of these life choices are going to prove problematic.

The film opens with a precision-engineered armored car heist that establishes McCauley’s crew as the Ocean’s Eleven of armed robbery, if Ocean’s Eleven were directed by a perfectionist with a fetish for metallic blue color grading. This brings them to the attention of Hanna’s department, setting up a cat-and-mouse game between two men who might actually be the same cat, just wearing different uniforms.

At its heart, “Heat” is a movie about work-life balance, if your work happens to involve either robbing banks or stopping bank robbers. Both leads are essentially workaholics who happen to be on opposite sides of the law. Their infamous coffee shop scene (the first time Pacino and De Niro ever shared the screen together) plays like the world’s most intense job interview, if job interviews involved discussing your philosophy on murder.

What Makes It Sizzle:

  • The downtown L.A. shootout that redefined what a movie gunfight could sound like (so realistic that the military uses it for training)
  • Michael Mann’s signature style turning Los Angeles into a chrome and steel urban jungle
  • A supporting cast so deep it makes other movies’ supporting casts look like amateur hour
  • Character development that gives everyone, even minor players, clear motivations and stakes
  • The most intense coffee shop conversation in cinema history
  • Dante Spinotti’s cinematography making Los Angeles look like a noir painting come to life

What Makes It Simmer:

  • At nearly three hours, it demands a serious time commitment
  • Some viewers might find the pacing deliberately methodical
  • The domestic drama subplots occasionally feel less engaging than the main story
  • If you’re expecting non-stop action, you might be surprised by how much time is spent on character development

The Verdict:
“Heat” is what happens when you take a crime thriller and treat it with the gravity of a Shakespeare play. It’s a meditation on duality, professionalism, and the cost of dedication wrapped in the clothes of a cops-and-robbers movie. Mann crafts a Los Angeles that feels both real and mythic, where every street corner could be the setting for either a philosophical discussion or a firefight.

The film’s greatest achievement is making you understand and empathize with both sides while never letting you forget that this can only end one way. It’s like watching two grandmasters play chess, if chess pieces were armed with automatic weapons and had complicated home lives.

Rating: 5 out of 5 precision-timed heists

Once Upon a Time in America

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

The Longest Game of Criminal Musical Chairs Ever Filmed

Looking for a nice, straightforward gangster movie? Maybe try Goodfellas. Sergio Leone’s final film is what happens when you take a crime epic, throw it in a blender with a pocket watch, and hit the “timeline confetti” button. It’s nearly four hours of past, present, and “wait, when are we now?”

Our story follows David “Noodles” Aaronson (Robert De Niro) through three primary time periods: the 1920s (child gangster edition), the 1930s (successful gangster edition), and 1968 (confused old gangster edition). The film opens with Noodles in 1933 fleeing from gangsters after apparently getting his friends killed and stealing their money. Because that’s what friends are for, right?

Cut to 1968, where an older Noodles returns to New York after receiving a mysterious letter. He looks like he’s spent the last 35 years trying to figure out what exactly happened in this movie, and honestly, same. He visits a still-operating speakeasy run by Fat Moe (Larry Rapp), whose sister Deborah (Elizabeth McGovern) was the love of Noodles’ life – at least when he wasn’t too busy ruining everything.

Through a series of flashbacks more complex than a quantum physics textbook, we learn about young Noodles (Scott Tiler) and his childhood friend Max (Rusty Jacobs). They start their criminal career in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where they meet Patsy and Cockeye, forming a gang that makes the Little Rascals look like model citizens. Their early adventures include setting a rival’s newspaper stand on fire, which seems like a lot of effort to avoid reading the morning news.

Young Noodles goes to prison for killing a rival gang member, and when he gets out, he reunites with his now-grown friends. Adult Max (James Woods) has become more ambitious than a Silicon Valley startup founder, leading the gang into bigger scores during Prohibition. The adult gang’s operations are successful enough to make them rich, but Max keeps pushing for more, because apparently being a wealthy criminal during the Depression isn’t enough of an achievement.

The film weaves through their rise to power, complicated by Noodles’ obsession with Deborah and Max’s increasingly risky schemes. There’s a subplot about a union leader named Jimmy O’Donnell that’s more confusing than trying to assemble IKEA furniture without instructions. Meanwhile, Noodles’ relationship with Deborah goes about as well as you’d expect from someone whose emotional intelligence is somewhere between a rock and a slightly smaller rock.

Everything supposedly culminates in a betrayal in 1933 that leads to the deaths of Max, Patsy, and Cockeye. But because this is Leone, nothing is what it seems. In 1968, Noodles discovers that Max faked his death, stole the gang’s money, and became a powerful political figure named Secretary Bailey. It’s like the worst high school reunion surprise ever.

The Verdict

What I Love:

  • A narrative structure that makes Christopher Nolan say “maybe that’s a bit complicated”
  • Ennio Morricone’s score that makes even scenes of people walking seem epic
  • De Niro proving he can brood in multiple decades
  • James Woods at peak James Woods-iness
  • Cinematography that makes New York look like a beautiful dream, even when it’s a nightmare

What Could’ve Been Better:

  • Might require a flowchart to follow the timeline
  • Will definitely affect your ability to tell what year it is
  • Could make you suspicious of any childhood friend who seems too ambitious

This is a film that treats time like a suggestion rather than a rule. It’s less “Once Upon a Time” and more “Several Times at Once in America.” At nearly four hours long, it’s the kind of movie that makes Lord of the Rings look like a TikTok video.

Rating: 5 out of 5 opium-induced time jumps

P.S. – If you’re planning to watch this, maybe take notes. Or better yet, bring a professional timekeeper.

Raging Bull

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

Ever wonder what would happen if you took the world’s angriest man and made him punch people for a living? Meet Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro), a middleweight boxer whose approach to both fighting and relationships makes Mike Tyson look like a meditation teacher.

Scorsese’s black-and-white masterpiece follows LaMotta through his rise and spectacular face-first fall, chronicling a man who apparently never met a person – including himself – he didn’t want to fight. The film opens in 1941, when Jake is just a up-and-coming boxer whose only notable personality trait is his ability to take a punch better than most people take compliments.

Enter Jake’s brother Joey (Joe Pesci, proving that short men can be terrifying long before Goodfellas), who manages Jake’s career with all the subtlety of a punch to the face. Their relationship is like watching the world’s most violent family counseling session, complete with mob connections and fixed fights. When Jake meets 15-year-old Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), he pursues her with all the charm of a restraining order waiting to happen. They eventually marry, because apparently no one thought to warn her about red flags.

The boxing scenes are shot like violent ballet, with blood spraying in gorgeous slow motion and sounds that make every punch feel like a small car accident. Scorsese films these fights like they’re taking place in hell itself, with smoke filling the ring and flashbulbs popping like tiny explosions. It’s beautiful in the same way a tornado is beautiful – from a very safe distance.

But the real fighting happens outside the ring. Jake’s pathological jealousy turns his life into a never-ending episode of “Who’s Sleeping With My Wife?” (Spoiler alert: probably nobody). He accuses Joey of having an affair with Vickie, which leads to a fight that makes their childhood squabbles look like pillow fights. He beats up his wife’s supposed admirers with the dedication of a man filling out his punch card at a very violent coffee shop.

The film charts Jake’s rise to the middleweight championship, including his famous fights with Sugar Ray Robinson, whom Jake seems to view less as an opponent and more as a personal insult to his existence. But because Jake can’t stop being Jake for five minutes, he gains weight, loses his title, and manages to alienate literally everyone who ever cared about him.

By the 1950s, Jake is reduced to running a sleazy Miami nightclub and performing bad stand-up comedy, which is somehow more painful to watch than any of his boxing matches. He gets arrested for introducing underage girls to male patrons, sending him to prison where, in a moment of pure LaMotta logic, he punches a wall until his knuckles bleed while screaming “Why? Why?”

The film ends with an older, paunchier Jake rehearsing his nightclub act in front of a mirror, reciting Marlon Brando’s famous “I coulda been a contender” speech from On the Waterfront. It’s a moment of crushing irony – unlike Terry Malloy, Jake had actually made it. He just couldn’t stop fighting long enough to enjoy it.

The Verdict

What I Love:

  • De Niro’s performance, which included gaining 60 pounds and presumably losing his sanity
  • Boxing sequences that make actual boxing look like synchronized swimming
  • Michael Chapman’s black-and-white cinematography that makes everything look like a beautiful nightmare
  • Joe Pesci proving that rage isn’t determined by height
  • Dialogue that makes profanity sound like Shakespeare

What Could’ve Been Better:

  • Might make you reconsider your boxing career
  • Will definitely affect your appetite for steak
  • Could make family reunions seem relatively peaceful by comparison

“Raging Bull” is like watching a Greek tragedy where everyone speaks in four-letter words and resolves their conflicts with uppercuts. It’s a masterpiece that makes you grateful for modern anger management techniques.

Rating: 5 out of 5 perfectly cooked steaks (medium rare, or Jake will know)

P.S. – After watching this, you might want to hug your brother. Unless he’s Joe Pesci.

Taxi Driver

Anthony Panariello Leave a comment

Ever had insomnia so bad you decided to become a taxi driver and slowly descend into violent psychosis? Meet Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), a Vietnam vet whose idea of a self-improvement program makes Fight Club look like a mindfulness retreat.

Travis takes a job driving a taxi on New York’s night shift, which in 1976 was about as relaxing as being a rodeo clown with vertigo. He cruises through a Times Square that makes modern-day Times Square look like Disneyland, carrying passengers that would make an Uber driver’s one-star reviews seem quaint. His journal entries reveal a man who sees the city as a cesspool that needs cleaning, though his idea of urban renewal involves significantly more ammunition than most city planners would recommend.

Our sleep-deprived protagonist becomes fixated on two women: Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign worker for presidential candidate Charles Palantine, and Iris (Jodie Foster), a 12-year-old prostitute. Because nothing says “I’m totally stable” like taking your first date to a Swedish porn film, Travis manages to spectacularly bomb his chances with Betsy faster than you can say “poor choice of venue.” Pro tip: X-rated movies are generally not considered first-date material, unless you’re dating a film critic with very specific interests.

Meanwhile, Travis’s mental state deteriorates faster than a sandwich left in a hot cab. He starts working out, buying illegal guns from sketchy salesmen (played by Steven Prince, who probably didn’t have to act much), and practicing quick-draws in front of his mirror while delivering the now-iconic “You talkin’ to me?” monologue – which, by the way, is the worst self-help affirmation ever.

His apartment turns into what would happen if an army surplus store had a baby with a pharmacy’s worth of uppers. He straps a gun to his arm using a homemade sliding mechanism that would make Q Branch jealous, shaves his hair into a mohawk that would give any barber PTSD, and generally transforms himself into a one-man army whose recruiting officer really should have checked references.

The plot accelerates when Travis fixates on “saving” Iris from her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel, rocking a wardrobe that makes most disco outfits look understated). He also decides that presidential candidate Palantine needs to be assassinated, because nothing says “I’m helping” like attempting to shoot a politician. When that plan fails – turns out Secret Service agents don’t appreciate mohawked guys reaching for their pockets – Travis redirects his violent salvation complex toward Sport and Iris’s other exploiters.

The finale explodes into one of cinema’s most notorious bloodbaths, as Travis storms the brothel in a scene that makes The Shining look like a real estate walkthrough. He eliminates Sport, the hotel manager, and Iris’s client in a sequence that’s both horrifying and weirdly balletic, if your idea of ballet involves multiple gunshot wounds. Travis himself is shot several times but keeps going, demonstrating that crazy beats bullets every time.

The film’s coda is a masterpiece of irony: Travis survives and is hailed as a hero by the media for saving Iris. We see him back at work, now famous among his fellow cabbies, even getting a fare from Betsy who seems impressed by his newfound notoriety. But that final look in his rearview mirror suggests that New York’s most unstable cabbie hasn’t exactly found inner peace.

The Verdict

What I Love:

  • De Niro’s performance, which makes other method actors look like they’re doing dinner theater
  • The grimy portrayal of 1970s New York that makes modern tourists seem adorably naive
  • Bernard Herrmann’s last and possibly greatest score, which sounds like jazz having a nervous breakdown
  • Paul Schrader’s script that reads like Dostoevsky after three days without sleep
  • Michael Chapman’s cinematography that makes you want to take a shower, but in a good way

What Could’ve Been Better:

  • Might make you reconsider using ride-share services
  • Will definitely make you suspicious of anyone who owns multiple guns and hair clippers
  • Could affect tourism to New York (though modern Times Square has done that anyway)

“Taxi Driver” is a masterpiece that manages to be both a character study and a slap in the face to anyone who thinks mental health services are adequately funded. It’s like watching a train wreck if the train were consciousness itself, and the track were society’s failed support systems.

Rating: 5 out of 5 possibly imagined cab fares

P.S. – After watching this, you might want to take the bus for a while.