i want you to hit me as hard as you can... 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. With its
epic scale, star power and heart stopping action, the 1995 crime thriller heat revolutionized the
genre and cemented its status as a certified classic. Perhaps surprisingly, the hard-boiled
detective and career criminal at the center of the story were heavily inspired by real people.
But just how close to reality is this tale of cops and robbers? Grab a cup of coffee and find out
what the [ __ ] really happened to this movie! I had coffee with Mccaulay half an hour ago!
Heat follows LAPD detective Vincent Hanna,
an unforgettable and often loud performance from Al Pacino [ __ ] she got a great ass!
As he desperately works to take down Robert De Niro's ruthless but deliberate Neil Mccauley,
a professional robber with a team of loyal thieves. While Michael Mann's action sensibility
has few rivals, the film's true power is in its exploration of these two damaged and lonely men.
I'm alone I am not lonely. who find some twisted form of admiration through their
cat and mouse chase. This unique duality between cop and criminal is what ultimately
inspired Mann to tell the fascinating story, and that central dynamic was based in truth.
Thanks for watching Joblo videos, if you enjoy our shows please like and subscribe and click the
bell to be notified when new videos go live, now back to the show. In the 1970s Mann was introduced
to former Chicago detective Chuck Adamson. At that time Adamson was working as a consultant
on a number of Hollywood projects including Mann's 1981 feature directing debut Thief before breaking
into the industry with Crime Story, a series he created that starred Dennis Farina, chuck's friend
and former police colleague. Mann and Adamson became fast friends and the retired detective
would often share his street stories with the director who became obsessed with what he heard.
More specifically Mann was enamored with Adamson's fast aggressive life and his
complicated relationship with the real Neil Mccauley, a career thief who pursued the
biggest scores in 1960s Chicago. According to Adamson, Mccauley had been involved in a
life of crime from a young age having done three different stints in prison by the time he was 20.
For almost half of his 49 years on earth Mccaulay would drop in and out of prison including Alcatraz
for various crimes ranging from theft to murder, but he never considered going straight, making
him the perfect foil for the equally determined Adamson. Michael Mann immediately began working
on the script, basing other characters within the story on criminals and cops that he met during his
years through ride-alongs and conversations with active or retired law enforcement.
For example Jon Voight's fence character Nate was directly inspired by Edward Bunker,
who many cinema fans will know as Mr Blue in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.
Bunker was another longtime criminal and bank robber who found his way into Hollywood thanks
to his debut novel No Beast So Fierce, which he wrote during his final prison stretch. His book
became required reading on the set of Heat and Bunker worked as a crime consultant on the film.
Val Kilmer's character Chris Shiherlis is very loosely based on Miklos Polesti,
a former associate of Mccauley's, and Kevin Gage's lowlife Waingro, the real villain of the movie,
was based on a snitch who ratted out a crew of criminals in Chicago.
The real Waingro went missing and was later found in Mexico dead and nailed to the wall of
a shed. While not directly inspired by anyone in particular, the rest of Mccauley's crime crew and
Hanna's team of investigators were all imbued with the personalities of people Michael Mann had met
or heard stories about. Mann finished the script in the late 1970s, hoping to find a director to
tackle the story but nothing came to fruition. Years passed and as Mann's status in Hollywood
grew he was given the opportunity to create a television show for NBC. Figuring this was his
best chance to bring the material to the screen he retrofitted the story and filmed a pilot,
which was never picked up for series. That pilot was turned into a forgettable TV movie called
LA Takedown, which features many of the 1995 film's main beats, like the armored car heist
and post-bank robbery shootout. While it obviously does not have the A-list star power, LA Takedown
did have Michael Rooker among Hanna's team and ubiquitous character actor Xander Berkeley as
double-crossing scumbag Waingro. When the project failed to gain any traction everyone moved on.
But you do not get to watch live [ __ ] television set. But years later Michael Mann
decided to revisit the story after realizing it could only work as a full-length feature
he expanded the plot fine-tuned the main characters and teamed up with veteran producer
Art Linson to finally bring his true vision to the big screen. The rest is history. While Vincent
Hanna and Neil Mccauley are at least partially based on real people, what about the heists,
blood pumping shootouts and other memorable moments that have made the film a beloved classic?
Heat opens with an armored truck robbery that involves a stolen ambulance,
a heavy-duty tow truck and a whole lot of coordination. After the tow truck flips the
armored vehicle our thieves rush in and steal some bonds for their employer. The operation
goes smoothly until Waingro, the loose cannon of the bunch, shoots one of the security guards
resulting in the termination of the others. Drop of a hat these guys will rock and roll.
It's a hard-hitting opening sequence and sets the tone for what's to come but this heist is
not based on any specific real-life robbery. However that's not to say it wasn't inspired by a
combination of real-life heists as Michael Mann's films are often developed through heavy research
and eyewitness testimony to make them as realistic as possible. This is so true that when Mann
attended a Paris film festival years later, French gangster Redoine Faid approached him and said "you
were my technical advisor." Faid claimed to have watched Heat dozens of times to hone his skills
as a bank robber on his way to becoming France's most wanted criminal. The media would also later
attribute the film's influence to a number of armored car robberies in several countries.
After the movie's opening heist we're introduced to shifty businessman Roger Van Zant,
the owner of the stolen bonds. The resulting subplot involving him and his purloined paperwork
was made up for the film - by all accounts the real Mccauley and his crew mainly targeted hard
cash and were never embroiled in such a scheme. Similarly in the film Hanna meets with a criminal
informant who has information on Mccaulay's next score, a precious metals warehouse. The cops set
up surveillance in a cargo truck across the street from the repository. On the night of
the heist Mccaulay and his crew arrive, cutting the alarms and drilling into the main vault.
While the crew works Mccaulay steps outside to keep watch. When one of the anxious officers
in the nearby truck slips, Mccaulay gets spooked and abandons the heist, forfeiting a large payout.
Remarkably, this scene is based on an actual stakeout involving Chuck Adamson and the real
Neil Mccauley. In the early 1960s Adamson had learned that Mccauley and his crew were
targeting a department store as their next big score. Adamson sent two detectives inside before
Mccauley's arrival while he and other officers secretly surrounded the building outside.
As Adamson recounted, when Mccauley appeared at the store he immediately knew something was off,
so he and his crew went into the store basement and quietly listened for any suspicious noises.
Soon after one of the officers inside the store went to use the bathroom and his footsteps
radiated into the basement where the criminals were hiding. Mccauley and his crew calmly exited
the store and never returned. Not only was the stakeout blown but now Mccauley knew the cops
were on his trail. Despite how infuriating it was for Adamson to lose Mccaulay at the time he gained
a lot of respect for the thief's professionalism and meticulous nature. Although they operated on
opposite sides of the law Adamson couldn't help but admire Mccauley - he thought it was exciting
to chase such a good thief. This duality is what informed the crackling dynamic between Pacino and
De Niro, which was masterfully showcased in the now famous coffee shop conversation between Hanna
and Mccaulay. In the film Hanna pulls Mccaulay over on the LA freeway and while Mccaulay is ready
for a confrontation Hanna merely offers to buy him a cup of coffee. At a nearby restaurant the
two characters connect in ways they've arguably never been able to with anyone else - they share
personal details and bond over their very similar lives, albeit on opposite sides of the morality
spectrum. Both men strongly imply they will not hesitate to kill the other if necessary. Brother
you are going down. This entire scene is almost taken verbatim from a real sit between Adamson
and Mccauley. According to the retired detective he and Mccaulay had serendipitously crossed paths
on the street in 1963. They agreed to grab coffee at a local diner and although the conversation
started off tense, with Adamson telling the thief to take his criminal activities elsewhere,
the tension gradually subsided and the two ended up having a rather deep and intimate conversation.
Just like Hanna in the film, Adamson was going through some personal issues at the time and he
let some of that weight off his chest. Despite the rapport between the two men both recognized that
one would probably kill the other the next time they met. Unsurprisingly those words rang true.
Soon after their meeting Hanna finally gets a tip concerning which bank Mccaulay and his crew plan
to strike. They rush to intervene but before the police have a chance to confront the men
Chris spots them and unloads his weapon, resulting in one of the most realistic firefights ever
captured on celluloid. While some details were inspired by actual situations, the iconic sequence
was largely a work of fiction created entirely for the movie. Mut Michael Mann did strive to
make it as realistic as possible - the scene is famous because of how grounded it is. The cast
used real weapons and went through thousands of blank rounds and Mann captured the live production
audio of the deafening gunfire. Mccaulay firing through the getaway car windshield came from a
weapons trainer and former soldier who had once employed the tactic in a real combat situation.
The fluid suppressing fire and movement utilized by the robbers was based in military training
and the actors trained for months to make it look as accurate as possible. In fact
the scene has since been shown to Marines as a practical example of bounding overwatch tactics.
While the event itself is fictional, it was so realistic that it's believed to have inspired
the 1997 North Hollywood shootout in which two men with body armor and high caliber weapons robbed a
bank and engaged in a brutal protracted firefight with the LAPD. The shootout is considered one of
the longest and bloodiest events of its type in American police history. When the smoke cleared
both robbers were dead and 18 others including 11 officers were injured. The final hour of Heat
traces the fallout of this botched robbery and its impact on our main characters.
As Hanna's pursuit of his prey ramps up Mccaulay abandons a last-ditch escape plan with his new
girlfriend to go after the men who betrayed him. Meanwhile Chris tries to avoid the police who
have wrangled his wife into a sting operation to capture him, and Hanna's third marriage begins to
collapse and his stepdaughter narrowly survives a suicide attempt. It all makes for compelling
drama but none of this actually happened - although the significant others were all inspired
by women who were involved with criminals and hard-living detectives like Mccauley and Hanna,
none of them were explicitly based on real people. After Mccaulay executes Waingro, the
film climaxes with a shootout on an airport runway it's a tense showdown between Hanna and Mccaulay,
which ultimately culminates with the detective getting the upper hand on his adversary,
who slowly dies in the presence of perhaps the only man who will ever understand him.
The end of the real Mccaulay's reign of thievery wasn't nearly as sentimental and
epic as Mann's depiction. In 1964 Adamson and his team of detectives got word that Mccaulay
was planning to rob a grocery store and tailed the crew to the location, where cash trucks
were dropping off large sums of money. The thieves hurried inside while Mccauley remained in the car.
Adamson and his team could see the men holding up the store but waited to avoid a potential
bloodbath, but outside Mccaulay and his crew spotted Adamson and his partner and opened fire,
similar to the bank heist scene. A gunfight and foot chase ensued and two of Mccaulay's
men were killed in the gangways of nearby homes. Another managed to escape but was
captured a few days later, and Adamson chased Mccaulay further into the surrounding suburbs
before killing him on someone's front lawn - a much less dignified end to the respected foe.
It's important to note that Michael Mann never set out to make a true story about the events or
the two men at the center of the film. Rather it was their unique dynamic and mutual esteem
that inspired Mann to write the film. But while it may predominantly be a work of fiction, thanks
to a stellar cast and Mann's grounded approach and thorough research, Heat remains a thrilling
crime classic. Let us know your thoughts, leave a comment in the comments and thanks for watching