Two legends give a 6 minute masterclass of acting skills.
Being one of the most acclaimed crime films of not just The '90s, but of all time, and featuring an ensemble cast with a perfectionist and auteur director, you just know that this film is brimming with Awesome Moments.- Al Pacino utterly discombobulating Hank Azaria's character (and Hank Azaria himself, as this was an ad-lib) with:Vincent: 'Cause she's got a... GREAT ASS! And you've got your head all the way up it!
- Neil slams Waingro's head into the table after their heist, a man looks over in concern and Cheritto gives the man the best 'don't fuck with me' stare he can muster. The man takes the hint.
- The famous coffee scene. It's strangely fitting that its most compelling moment should be a simple, quiet scene where two protagonists share a coffee, have a pleasant conversation and discovering that, despite the fact that they work on polar opposite sides of the law, they're two similar guys who actually kind of like each other.
- That said, both make sure that neither is in any doubt that the other will use deadly force to shut his opponent down should their goals come into direct confrontation (as they inevitably will).
Vincent: You know, we're sitting here... you and I, like a couple of regular fellas. You do what you do, and I do what I gotta do. And now that we've been face to face, if I'm there and I gotta put you away, I won't like it. But I tell you, if it's between you and some poor bastard whose wife you're gonna turn into a widow, brother, you are going down.Neil: There's a flip side to that coin. What if you do got me boxed in and I gotta put you down? Cause no matter what, you will not get in my way. We've been face to face, yeah. But I will not hesitate. Not for a second.- Prior to this, we get the setup where Vincent finally manages to bear down on Neil for the first time to have a chat with him. He's hovering over the city in a helo, and arranges to have one of the revolving tail on Neil handover with him. When the pilot lands the chopper, Vincent and the detective smoothly swap vehicles and Vincent speeds off in precise, effortless pursuit over the freeway. Discretely maneuvering between traffic, he only finally switches his red lights on as he pulls up behind Neil. The whole scene is scored by the wailing, angsty shredding of Moby's guitars in the cover of Joy Division's "New Dawn Fades" and utterly sold by the intense expressions put across by Pacino and De Niro. Neil has his own minor moment, tucking his H&K USP between his legs should they end up in a quick draw standoff, while Vincent holds his own Colt M1991A1 behind his back as he cautiously approaches the car on foot. Vincent then breaks the ice by merely offering to buy Neil a coffee, finally leading into the (...next!) classic scene.
- Then, the payoff to the conversation is that Vincent's team inform him, in his words, that Neil's crew have "DUMPED ALL OUR SURVEILLANCE?!??", further showcasing their finely tuned competence as a professional criminal outfit.
- Breedan giving his boss a well-deserved shove to the floor.
- The bank robbery sequence
. The most believable, most intense cops-and-robbers shootout committed to film. When a real bank robbery in L.A. happened a few years later, nearby citizenry thought someone was filming a Heat sequel. What really sold the sequence was the audio, which sounds like no other cinematic gunfight. None of the gunshots were added in post. Instead, the sound was captured live during filming with carefully placed microphones. - The armored car robbery is also just as much as Moment of Awesome as it is an Establishing Character Moment for each member of the crew.
- Neil killing Van Zant and Waingro especially how horrible they were.
- Getting an early tip about Neil's crew pulling a heist, Hanna sets up a sting operation near the target and has cameras set up to record everything. Just as the thieves begin their work, a clumsy police officer bumps his rifle against the side of the box truck the cops are hiding in. Just by that one bit of noise, Neil freezes and stares out into the dark of night. He unnervingly makes eye contact with a hidden camera to where it's like he and Hanna are staring at each other, and Neil immediately tells his team to cancel their heist and pack up. They don't do enough to justify any attempt at an arrest, and Hanna has to rail in frustration as Neil slips out of the net.
- Hanna's cops are able to trail Neil and his crew out to the docks, where they watch and take pictures of Neil giving out instructions to his team on what their next target might be. Once they leave, Hanna and his team go down to examine the site, and immediately get confused over what Neil might have been targeting as no clear target can be made. Hanna suddenly gets a flash of insight, and realizes Neil wasn't there to plan a heist: Neil was there to trick the cops following him to show themselves so he can see who's chasing him. Laughing at the audacity of it, Hanna begins to flip the bird in every direction, which amuses Neil as he takes photos with a telescopic lens at the other end of the docks.
- Neil's threat to Van Zant is a Badass Boast delivered about as emotionlessly as possible; "I'm talking to an empty phone... because there is a dead man on the other end of this fucking line." (Mic Drop)
