30 years ago, Heat brought De Niro and Pacino together in unexpected ways

At the start of Michael Man’s thriller, Detective Vincent Hanna (Pacino) is on the Robbery Homicide beat for the LAPD, investigating a series of deadly heists perpetrated by Neil McCauley (De Niro) and his crew. That means for the first hour-plus of the movie, Hanna is showing up at crime scenes well after McCauley has left. Then, about halfway through the 170-minute film, the two men (and their various associates) are in the same place at the same time: Hanna and his fellow cops wait to catch McCauley and his crew robbing a precious metals depository.