Chris Ryan and Sean Witzke at Grantland did a nice retrospective / Q&A on the past 20 years of Michael Mann films.
Here’s Ryan on everyone’s favorite, Heat (1995):
It’s one of my top two or three favorite movies ever made. Probably one of the most thrilling experiences I’ve ever had in a movie theater, and it has one of the greatest set pieces ever filmed. I remember it also as a reprieve from some of the more postmodern tendencies a lot of genre movies had adopted after Reservoir Dogs. There is no bluffing happening in this movie.
I first watched Heat during my freshmen year of college. The movie came highly recommended by a guy who lived down the hall. I remember him describing the movie as “realistic,” saying that the sound of gunshots and explosions were not overdubbed (Mann wanted to keep them as startling as possible).
See for yourself (watch with headphones):