#283: Heat (1986)

Release Date: March 13th, 1987 (United States)

Format: Streaming (Tubi) Written by: William Goldman Directed by: Dick Richards (billed as R.M. Richards) 3 Stars

No, not that Heat, the other Heat. 

Although written by the legendary William Goldman, 1986’s Heat, directed by Dick Richards (among others, more on that in a bit), was easily brushed aside in the public consciousness when Michael Mann came around in 1995 with his similarly titled heist classic.

Watching it this morning for the first time, I gotta say, I really liked it. What a strange mixture of genres Goldman is drawing from. Mostly a character study centered around the film’s protagonist, Nick Escalante (Burt Reynolds), Heat also incorporates elements of neo noir, crime, buddy comedy, action, and drama. It doesn’t all work, but if you walk into this flick suspecting just another generic ‘80s vigilante movie, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by some unexpected story beats and odd detours in the script. 

The film starts in media res, with an attractive young blonde woman being dumped out of a limousine on the side of the road. She’s bloodied and badly hurt. Then the film cuts to Nick Escalante, sitting at the bar in an empty saloon. A woman enters, alone, and Nick starts harassing her, pressuring her to dance and demanding that she let him buy her a drink. 

To her relief her boyfriend finally enters the bar, a diminutive man in a tan suit, and Nick starts going at him too. He snatches the man’s toupee off his head and begins taunting him (ironic, since Burt had been publicly wearing toupees since the early 1970s, and the one he wears in Heat is not his best). He threatens the man with violence and even follows the couple out to their car. 

It’s at this point where I started to wonder, “Wait, is Burt the heavy in this flick?” 

Finally the little man in the suit stands up for himself and kicks Nick’s ass in the parking lot, surprisingly. It’s kind of funny I suppose, but mostly confusing. Just what kind of movie are we watching? 

The film then cuts to the next morning, with Nick entering a diner on Las Vegas Boulevard. He’s greeted warmly by several patrons, including the little man in the suit from the night before. We learn that they had arranged this clever scenario, and the man happily pays Nick $300 for his help. That girlfriend of his thinks he’s a real macho tough guy now.

Well done William Goldman. You got me. 

Oh, and the battered woman from the film’s opening scene? We soon learn that Nick, a professional bodyguard, knows her and agrees to get her some revenge from her attacker, a spoiled Fredo-esque mafioso kid who likes to party a bit too hard. There’s also a storyline about a wealthy tech developer who hires Nick to protect him during some gambling outings, and then wants Nick to train him to be a tough guy like Nick is. 

As we spend more and more time with Nick on the streets of Las Vegas, we learn that he has his own problems too. It’s not a coincidence that he ended up in Sin City.  

In Heat you can see the machinations in Goldman’s plot and character development, but it’s still a lot of fun. Goldman gives us some good old fashioned Hollywood twists and turns.

Apparently, though, the production was absolute hell. Director Dick Richards butted heads with Reynolds, to the point where Reynolds took a swing at him and Richards walked off the set. He later settled with the film’s producers and agreed to take a directing credit under the pseudonym “R.M. Richards,” but according to Richards there were no fewer than four other directors who helped finish the film. In the film’s closing action set pieces, you can see a dip in the production quality.

Heat is another one of those great what-if movies. It’s got a meaty script and a movie star - fading, yes, but still a star - but a director who simply couldn’t harness him or earn his respect. Ironically, Richard Donner released Lethal Weapon the week before Heat, made on a similar budget, but his action tough guy film went on to earn well above $100 million. Heat lost $10 million. 

If you simply switched directors, would Donner be able to co-exist with Reynolds and revitalize his career? Would Heat be a hit? Yeah, I think so.      

Postscript: There is some incredible on-location shooting in Heat. It’ll never make a “Best Las Vegas Movies of All-Time List,” but it really should. There is some beautiful photography on Las Vegas Boulevard, in downtown Las Vegas, and in numerous legendary casinos that have since been demolished.