Headscratchers / Heat

• Considering the LAPD know that Chris is part of Neil's crew, have been tailing him for days, have taken dozens of photographs of him as part of the tail, and presumably have his mugshot on file, it's a little baffling how none of the police officers stationed outside Charlene's safe house recognize him when they stop him to check his ID. One would have thought Sgt. Drucker might have distributed photos of Chris to all of the officers who'd been assigned to the operation beforehand, like "keep an eye out for this guy, he's the one we're looking for".
  • While they probably did do these things, the movie actually explains this; Chris has clearly changed his appearance, having cut and dyed his hair. You'd be surprised how much that can work to trick someone who's expecting you to look different. It's perhaps not a foolproof disguise or anything, and possibly indicative that these aren't exactly LAPD's Finest, but the movie does at least provide an explanation for why they wouldn't necessarily recognise him at first glance.
• This is a question for both LA Takedown and its remake Heat. In the former, we observe the main criminal protagonist, Patrick McLaren, freely using his car phone (one would have to rewatch to check if he also uses an untethered cellular phone) without concern of being eavesdropped by the cops. But in the latter, we see his counterpart, Neil McCauley, rapidly agree to his colleague Trejo's request to use a landline instead of a cellular, and reassuring his associate Nate that he's using a new cellular (implying it will be harder for the police to put surveillance on it now, when the pressure is decidedly on for him to escape). Does this imply that the act of police surveillance on mobile communications was easier in 1995 than in 1989? And that criminals were more wise to that form of signals intelligence then than in 1989? They do say in LA Takedown that they were going to put a tap on the car phone, but this suggests having to physically break into it and wire tap it, rather than observing cellular communication remotely with untethered equipment.
• Why did Vincent let them go when they had them dead to rights for Breaking and Entering? He states that since they didn’t steal anything it would likely be plead down to a misdemeanour, they’d do six months in county and then disappear forever. But given their records it’s reasonable they would’ve served much longer. Plus while they were locked up they could’ve investigated the triple homicide further and likely would’ve found evidence to get a conviction or leaned on one of them to roll on the others.
  • His legal understanding in the jurisdiction they operated in must have given him reason to believe that only the misdemeanour would stick. There were no security cameras that we know of and only one auditory witness for the armoured vehicle robbery/triple homicide, and at that the witness was homeless and thus likely deemed to be unreliable for the purposes of a winnable prosecution (along with the fact that again, he only heard what the thieves were saying). Also, Hanna knew that the crew were heavily armed and dangerously capable. While they had a pretty good stakeout at the precious metals heist, he may well have feared risking the lives of the SWAT and other police teams there in case the crew didn't surrender cleanly. Thus he wanted a more severe crime to bust them on and either gain arrests or outright kill them to put them out of risk to the public, hopefully in circumstances where he could box the criminals in even tighter and confine their ability to fight back. Unfortunately, he didn't anticipate that their next opportunity would come from a tip right out of the blue, with the crime still live at the time, and that they wouldn't get there fast enough to trap them in the bank (minimising the risk of collateral damage).
  • He doesn't want to get them on a misdemeanor, he wants to get them on a serious felony charge. Part of the point of the movie is that Hanna is deeply invested in the hunt for Macauley. He wants to win. Getting Macauley off the streets for six months then having him disappear to another jurisdiction to continue pulling scores is not, in Hanna's book, a win.
• So with the release of Heat 2, how can we reconcile Neil's military service? In the film, he is shown to be ex-Marine Corps as implied by his tattoo shown in the love scene with Eady. But the novel states that he served in the 25th Infantry Division, which is an Army division based in Hawaii. It also says that they tried to induct him into the Army Rangers, but he declined. IIRC it states that his service was quite short in Vietnam, which would indicate he wouldn't have enough time to serve in both the Army and the Marine Corps (and why would one want to switch services, especially in such a difficult war, when serving for one would have been quite enough, anyway?). So how do we square this circle?
  • Neil joins the Marines very young. He gets the tattoo in basic training but ultimately washes out (Injury, discharge etc). He then joins the army later.
• If Breedan is monitoring the police frequencies as Neil instructs him to do why doesn't he hear Hanna organising the cops at the roadblock?
  • Hanna's team would have recovered the wreckage from the ambulance after the first heist, analysed it forensically and realised Neil's gang had a police scanner in order to eavesdrop on their communications. Hanna would have therefore employed encrypted radios and doled them out to the uniformed officers he grabbed at the police station when the tip about the robbery came in.
• Did Neil commit Suicide by Cop? He had a better idea than Vincent of where his enemy was at the end, and didn't necessarily need to wait for the floodlights to show him. But he conspicuously does wait, and even though Vincent was facing almost directly away from him, Vincent still manages to see his shadow (created by the lights Neil waited for), turn, and fire before Neil can get a shot off. Did Neil believe that things had gone too far, and even if he got away in that moment he had no more resources and would not be able to evade arrest (which he refused to allow) forever?
  • I really don't think so. I think, perhaps, it wasn't that he wanted to get Vincent illuminated by the floodlights, but rather he wanted Vincent blinded by the lights so that he could get his shots off and win the contest. But, it backfired on him and Vincent was able to use the trick on him instead. Neil is definitely a skilled warrior but safe to say that he's never been in this kind of showdown before and didn't know how the lights at an airport worked or that they could be dangerous given what direction they shine light upon. You can't win 'em all. As to your second question, I believe Neil did really hope to win the fight and then board the private, chartered jet to escape for New Zealand. He would want to continue evading prison for the rest of his life and so, in the new country, he would find a way to arm himself just in case the authorities came to extradite him; when it comes right down to it, he'd die in any protracted attempts to confront him but he'd try everything possible to come out on top instead as an obvious first preference.
  • Neil doesn't want to die (though he does make it clear that he prefers death to the possibility of returning to prison). He waits for the floodlights to come on both because while he might not strictly need to wait, it's nevertheless easier to tag an illuminated target rather than one in semi-darkness (if he shoots at Vincent in the darkness and misses, which is far from unlikely, he's given up his advantage), and because he hopes that the floodlights will blind Vincent if he tries to look in Neil's direction. He gambles that even if Vincent does detect him, he will not be able to react quickly or effectively enough before Neil has a chance to fire a killing shot. Unfortunately for him, he lost that gamble.
• In Heat 2, MacCauley, Sihiherlis and Cherrito dig into a vault of safety deposit boxes and, over the course of a weekend, break open as many as they can to rob those of the contents they deem most valuable before finally leaving the scene. This is stated to take around 54 hours and they are said to be exhausted by the end of it. However, is it made clear if they slept on rotating shifts? Or if they accounted for their bodily wastes over that period? Furthermore, Molina is their driver and their main eyes on the outside, watching vigilantly for anyone who could interfere. But did he have to take breaks? You'd think 54+ hours of awakeness would be too much for them, especially as they then also have to separate and journey (mostly by driving) back to their safe houses.