Heat
                                                                                                      
Director: Various
Year: 1986
Rating: 7.0
The other day I watched Wild Card with Jason Statham and then discovered that it was a remake of this film that is based on a William Goldman novel. Goldman also wrote the script. I enjoyed Wild Card enough to make me curious about this film and how Burt Reynold would play the Statham character. I liked this one better. Much of it follows the exact same plot and often dialogue but shifts the focus a bit. The main change though is the ending and I found this one more satisfactory. While Statham is almost too cool to play a down and out dreamer, it fits Reynold like an old beat up glove. This isn't really an action film with even less than Wild Card. It is more a solemn character drama about a man keeping his head above water and holding on to who he is.



Nick (Reynolds) is a good guy. Well respected. At one point he is asked if he is a violent man. "No, but I am very good at it.". He does odd jobs from helping a friend win his girlfriend's respect to hiring himself out as a bodyguard/chaperone to tourists passing through town.  He will also help a damsel in distress for free. All of these come into play. He is hired by a young nerdy needy fellow (Peter MacNicol) to take him around to the casinos where he nervously plays blackjack for $10. This aspect takes up more of the film than it does in Wild Card and plays out nicely.




But the main story revolves around him helping a female friend get revenge on a man and his two punks who brutalized her. Then the aftermath when they come after him. This does not have the big action set piece in the casino as Wild Card did. It saves most of the action till the end. Statham takes care of business in a delicious but very quick sequence while Reynolds has to be more Rambo like as he knocks them off in a lengthy cat and mouse set piece. It is surprising that the film holds together as well as it does with six directors. It started with Robert Altman which would have been interesting, but he dropped out early. Another quit when Reynolds hit him. Reynolds was past his classic films doing stuff like Smokey and the Bandit part 3 and Cannonball Run 2, but he had a solid three suspenseful films in a row with Stick, Heat and Malone.