Women in ‘Heat’
The victims of Mann’s men.
Michael Mann’s Heat (1995) is a film about men. Men are the primary protagonists. Every member of Vincent Hanna’s (Al Pacino) team is male, and every member of Neil McCauley’s (Robert DeNiro) crew is male. Men get all the cool lines (“Sit down, Ralph!”). Men have all the agency in every scene. The men are complex, layered, and multidimensional. And yet, for a film so singularly about men, Heat has an unusually large number of named female characters. These women are not as developed as their male counterparts, and their purpose is mostly to aide character development, yet some of the most enduring, affecting, and quietly haunting moments of Heat belong to these women. And by examining their fates we can learn some truths about Mann’s world.
Let’s begin by focussing on the partners of the three main protagonists: Vincent, Neil, and Neil’s most trusted crew member, Chris (Val Kilmer); before touching on the rest of the women portrayed in the movie. We’ll be discussing everything we learn about them, everything they do, and everything that happens to them, so needless to say…
Please note: Characters are not real people but, for the purposes of this analysis, I’ll be treating them as real human begins in the world Mann created. This article is not about character construction or purpose, but instead about what these women’s lives say about the worldview of Heat, a film I consider to be perfect (and I don’t say that lightly).
Charlene
Charlene (Ashley Judd) is married to Chris, a career criminal. They have one son together, Dominick. Chris is a gambling addict and frequently loses a large amount of his stolen gains. Charlene fights with Chris about this. When she does he tells her she is welcome to leave but that she would lose the house and other luxuries he has provided for her; she tells him that he would lose access to Dominick. Chris cheats irregularly and inconsistently, Charlene cheats regularly with a liquor wholesaler called Alan (Hank Azaria).
When Chris is involved in a botched robbery that descends into a fatal gunfight, Charlene calls Alan and offers to leave with him. Alan has been contacted by the police and under pressure turns Charlene over to them. They threaten her with jail if she does not help them to apprehend Chris. When the time comes, and at severe risk to her’s and Dominick’s care and future, Charlene uses a pre-arranged code to warn Chris, allowing him to evade capture.
This is Charlene’s pivotal moment.
Everything we’ve learned about her is factored into this final choice: will she turn Chris in or not? Charlene ends the story effectively separated from her husband, her son separated from his father. Presumably, she will now be without the house, car, and other property Chris paid for, which will all be seized as criminal gains. And yet she risks worse to help Chris escape, because despite her cheating, despite his cheating, his gambling, his criminal activity, and his potential murdering of police officers, she loves him deeply.
But this love has come to have a severe cost, and ultimately Chris has wounded her devastatingly. Even more than Chris, she and Dominick will have to live with the consequences of his failures.
Justine
Justine (Diane Venora) is married to Vincent, a senior police detective. It’s her second marriage, his third. She tries to connect with Vincent but doesn’t feel she sees enough of him to achieve that; as their only moments of intimacy are when they have sex. She’s frequently stood up and abandoned by Vincent in the service of his job; his pager regularly interrupting what few private moments they get. Justine also struggles to sustain a healthy relationship with her daughter, Lauren (Natalie Portman), who’s frequently stood up by her father, Justine’s previous husband.
Justine comes to resent her love for Vincent, and the fact that she can’t stop loving him despite his absence. So she has a one-night stand as an attempt to sabotage their marriage and gain closure, but when Lauren attempts suicide it’s clear how essential Justine’s relationship with Vincent is to her emotional stability. At the hospital where Lauren is recovering, they discuss their relationship: they can see no way to reconcile their problems, Vincent admitting that he cannot be as present as she requires, but still they do not commit to a separation. At that moment, Vincent’s pager beeps, and Justine gives him permission to abandon her for his job.
Justine lays out the state of their relationship early in the film. Vincent, his team, and their partners are out for a meal, drinks, and dancing. Vincent is dancing happily with Justine, who is laughing and enjoying this rare carefree moment together. But then his pager beeps, he is called away to a crime scene. Upon his return he finds Justine alone. She complains about the state of their relationship. He argues that she tacitly agreed to his terms:
“I told you when we hooked up, baby, that you were going to have to share me with all the bad people and ugly events on this planet.”
Justine replies with an astute assessment of the source of her frustration:
“And I bought into that sharing… because I love you. I love you fat, bald, money, no money, driving a bus. I don’t care. But you have got to be present like a normal guy some of the time. That’s sharing. This is not sharing. This is leftovers.”
Both Justine and Vincent failed to understand the terms upon which each other of them entered into their marriage, both incorrectly believing they were in agreement. It is in this moment that Justine acknowledges for the first time that Vincent cannot fulfil her emotional needs. He will not give her what she requires, and yet she can’t leave him:
“What I don’t understand is why I can’t cut loose of you.”
Vincent initially rejects her analysis, seeming to suggest that their relationship can survive, even thrive, on his terms. But by their final scene he has come to realise the impasse she describes. When she asks:
“Is there any way that it could work out between us?”
He replies:
“I wish I could say yes, you know. But in the end… You know, it’s like you said: all I am is what I’m going after. I’m not what you want, Justine.”
This is the tragedy of Justine’s life: she loves someone who can’t return that love on her terms. She must surrender to his terms if she chooses to stay with him. This is the choice she has in her pivotal and final onscreen moment: whether to give Vincent permission to stop comforting her in the aftermath of her daughter’s attempted suicide to go chase his prey.
This she does, telling him she can handle it, and even flashing him a reassuring smile when he looks back. She is resigned to the knowledge that his are the only terms upon which she can stay in a relationship with him. Even in the most extreme circumstances, even when she needs emotional support from Vincent more than she has ever needed it before, she must accept second place.
Eady
Eady (Amy Brenneman) is a freelance graphic designer and part-time bookshop employee. She has occasionally spotted Neil, a career criminal, in the shop but failed to make a connection with him. When she finds herself sitting next to him in a diner she takes the opportunity to speak to him. Neil is initially unsociable, but he quickly warms to her and she shares details of her life. In return, Neil lies, telling her he works in metals.
They form an emotional connection due to their shared loneliness, and have sex later that night. After more romantic encounters, Neil invites Eady to leave her life in Los Angeles and come start a new one with him in New Zealand.
Intensely lonely, and treasuring their intimate connection, she agrees. After the fatal gunfight is reported, Eady learns the truth about Neil. She withdraws from him, and into herself, but already emotionally dependent on him, she tentatively agrees to stay with him, clinging to the last of her hopes. Whilst making their escape together, she starts to warm to him again; but Neil spots Vincent pursuing him and abandons Eady in his attempt to evade capture.
Just like Charlene’s and Justine’s, Eady’s pivotal moment is her final one onscreen. But unlike the other two, she has no decision to make. She is passive, and her pivotal moment simply happens to her. This is it described from her perspective: Whilst making their way to the airport to escape, Neil stops their car by the back entrance of an airport hotel. He leaves the car and disappears inside the hotel, telling Eady to wait.
After a few minutes the fire alarm sounds, people flee the building, and emergency services arrive. Finally Neil emerges from the hotel, approaching the car and smiling at Eady. He glances into the crowd of emergency personnel, sees something (or someone), and a look of fear crosses his face. He takes a long look at her, backing away from the crowd, then he turns and flees; leaving Eady alone without even a word of goodbye.
Earlier, at the moment when Neil admits his role in the miscarried robbery, Eady flees him, but he catches up to her. As he wrestles her to the ground she plaintively cries:
“Why did you do this to me!?”
Neil was Eady’s last hope, her too-good-to-be-true opportunity for an emotional connection. She took a leap of faith by agreeing to a new life in New Zealand after knowing Neil for no more than a few days. She showed great commitment to him by staying after discovering he lied to her, and learning the truth about him. She commits to him completely, but he returns none of this; and with only thirty seconds of indecision he leaves her to her worst fate: loneliness again. And she has to watch it all happen with no power to change it.
Charlene, Justine, and Eady’s stories all end in emotional devastation. They are all abandoned. But surrounding them are many other peripheral female characters who suffer in different ways.
Widows
There are three other romantic relationships that the film draws our attention to, however briefly: Michael Cheritto (Tom Sizemore), a long term member of Neil’s crew, and his wife Elaine (Susan Traylor); Donald Breedan (Dennis Haysbert), a late addition to Neil’s crew, and his partner Lillian (Kim Staunton); and Bosko (Ted Levine), a long term member of Vincent’s team, and his partner (Patricia Healy). In all three cases, the men are killed in the botched robbery, the widows seen receiving the news from the blunt and insensitive television news.
Victims
There are also many memorable female victims. Justine’s suicidal daughter, Lauren; the prostitutes that Waingro (Kevin Gage) murders, and the mother of one of them (Hazelle Goodman); and Trejo’s (Danny Trejo) wife Anna (Begonya Plaza), who’s killed only because of her connection to him. Even the small child that Michael uses as a human shield during the gunfight is a girl (Yvonne Zima).
To be thorough, I’ll mention Rachel (Cindy Katz) the crime scene investigator, who’s possibly the only named female character who doesn’t suffer a terrible fate. She is only in one scene and has roughly five lines.
Connection
In the end, Charlene is separated from the husband she loves. Justine is trapped in a marriage without the emotional connection she yearns for. Eady pins the last of her hopes to a mysterious man, who then abandons her. Three other women are left alone, their partners killed in the line of duty. Lauren attempts suicide, spurred by her father’s ambivalence. Prostitutes and wives are murdered because they have the misfortune to enter the orbit of dangerous men.
Their stories and their ultimate fates differ in detail, but a common theme runs throughout them. The women in Heat try to form a connection with a man, but that man either rejects, sabotages, or abuses that connection, or else the connection itself is cursed.
The obvious question that presents itself when analysing female characters is whether or not the film is ultimately a progressive, feminist film, or a regressive, misogynist one. It is certainly true that women are excluded from the professional roles in the film, and it would seem an oversight today to not have a single female senior police detective or criminal.
Without statistics, I can’t tell you if Heat’s representation is accurate to either the LAPD or the armed robbery community of the mid-1990s. Heat is also a largely white and entirely straight film, but again I can’t speak to the accuracy of this representation in contrast or not to the real-life equivalent of the characters Mann has chosen to focus the film on. Heat is a film that strives for accuracy in almost every element, it is telling that Mann chose not to build a single set and instead used over seventy real Los Angeles locations. So how real and progressive is Heat’s representation of women? I am not qualified to answer, but would certainly argue that the women of the film have our sympathies to a greater extent than the men, and the analysis of each female character and their similar fates shows Mann’s dedication to representing the destructive consequences a man’s world has on women.
So is Heat a film about women? No. Heat is a film about men. Professional men, dedicated to their profession to the exclusion of everything else, including the women in their lives.
These women litter the outskirts of the film like snow churned to the roadside. But despite their peripheral position they possess some of most emotionally affecting moments, as many of the consequences that should land on the men land on them instead. Male characters die, but none are left as devastated and emotionally destroyed as Charlene, Justine, Eady, Lauren, and Michael’s, Bosko’s, and Donald’s widows. The men that live appear relatively unscarred.
Justine puts it best when she first confronts Vincent about their relationship, after sitting alone when everyone else has gone home with their partner. She tells him that the pursuit of his criminal prey is the only thing he is committed to…
“The rest is the mess you leave as you pass through.”
