There’s a good reason Sandra Bullock took the title of “Queen of the Romantic Comedy” away from Meg Ryan in the middle of the 1990s. Bullock projects a naturally awkward adorableness which makes the audience feel very protective of her: we empathize with her romantic plight and we want her to succeed because she obviously deserves the attention she’s so desperately craving.
At first glance, you might see the outlines of familiar cliches and think Michael Mann‘s Heat to be something it’s not: you see Al Pacino‘s Vincent Hanna as a kind of supercop, a crusader with well-honed detective skills willing to break whatever rules are necessary to nab the bad guys; you see Robert DeNiro‘s Neil [...]