Heat/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Complete Monster: Waingro, who is eventually revealed to be a rapist-murderer on top of everything else.
  • Draco in Leather Pants - Neil has quite the following despite being ultimately a bank robber, murderer, and all-around bad guy. This was probably at least partially intentional, though, given the amount of Character Development he gets.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The film is known for the climatic bank robbery scene, where Neil and his gang get into a gunfight with the police and shoot up Downtown LA with automatic rifles. However, this film came out two years before the infamous North Hollywood Shootout.
    • The robbers of the North Hollywood Shootout reportedly watched this film numerous times.
  • Funny Moments: Hanna gets a couple; his interrogation of Hank Azaria's character and his reaction to Ralph.
  • Moment of Awesome: The coffee scene is one of the most memorable scenes in cinematic history. The bank robbery scene, and the shootout that follows, is also a contender for the best robbery ever put on film.
  • Moral Event Horizon: The audience already knows that Waingro is an unstable and violent character after he shoots the first guard during the armored car robbery at point-blank range for no good reason, but the scene where he kills the prostitute, then the scene where Hanna visits the crime scene of another one of Waingro's victims, exists solely to push him into this in order to demonstrate how Neil and his friends, while still violent criminals, are much better people than him, even though Neil and his crew members use assault rifles during the bank robbery shootout and bring down several cops, and kill at least one detective.
  • Role Association: The Battle of the Corleones
  • Tear Jerker: Charlene, without a word, warning Chris to stay away, and in essence saying goodbye to him forever.
    • Also, Neil abandoning Eady when he sees Vincent coming after him.