Heat – Director's Definitive Edition

Cast View all

	Al Pacino	Lt. Vincent Hanna
	Robert De Niro	Neil McCauley
	Val Kilmer	Chris Shiherlis
	Jon Voight	Nate
	Tom Sizemore	Michael Cheritto
	Diane Venora	Justine
	Amy Brenneman	Eady
	Ashley Judd	Charlene Shiherlis
	Mykelti Williamson	Drucker
	Wes Studi	Casals
	Ted Levine	Bosko
	Dennis Haysbert	Donald Breedan
	William Fichtner	Roger Van Zant
	Natalie Portman	Lauren Gustafson
	Tom Noonan	Kelso
	Kevin Gage	Waingro
	Hank Azaria	Alan Marciano
	Susan Traylor	Elaine Cheritto
	Kim Staunton	Lillian
	Danny Trejo	Trejo
	Henry Rollins	Hugh Benny
	Jerry Trimble	Schwartz
	Martin Ferrero	Construction Clerk
	Ricky Harris	Albert Torena
	Tone Loc	Richard Torena

Crew View all

Director	Michael Mann
Writer	Michael Mann
Producer	Pieter Jan Brugge, Gusmano Cesaretti, Art Linson, Michael Mann, Arnon Milchan, Kathleen M. Shea
Musician	Elliot Goldenthal
Photography	Dante Spinotti

Personal

Notes

Heat is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Fans of the film know this was released several years ago by Warner Brothers with a transfer my colleague Ken Brown gave four stars while freely discussing the fact that inherent filming styles, palette choices and shadowy ambience meant that it wasn't go to win any reference quality awards. Fox is touting a "new restoration overseen by Michael Mann" without providing any real information (at least in the press packet accompanying this release) as to what elements were used, what resolution they were scanned at, and what exactly the restoration consisted of, though a lot of online data specifically mention a 4K scan, one would assume of the negative. The results here are kind of interesting, for while there are definite upticks in some detail levels from the Warner release, this one is also at least somewhat darker, something that may seem counterintuitive given the film's tamped down palette and often drab, blue ambience (contrast screenshot 6 in Ken's review with screenshot 12 in this one for just one example of the brightness differences). Despite the encroaching dimness of a lot of scenes in this film, fine detail is quite impressive in some close-ups (see screenshot 5), and while never popping in the traditional sense, the palette looks natural when not having been intentionally toyed with. As Ken noted with regard to the Warner release, there are soft moments scattered throughout this presentation that are source related but which do tend to mitigate some fine detail levels. I noticed none of the digital sharpening that Ken mentioned in his review of the Warner release, and I similarly saw no compression issues of any kind.

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