Epic shootout scene in Michael Mann's Heat is so good the Marines use it for training

Director Michael Mann’s crime epic Heat stars some of acting’s all time greats. We’re talking Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Val freakin’ Kilmer.

The three hour cop-and-robber shootout is considered one of Mann’s best movies, and one scene in particular was so good that it was adopted by the Marines as part of the military force’s training.

You know the scene we’re talking about. Yep. That’s right. It’s the all-guns-blazing shootout that happens after the film’s bank robbery, which, to this day, is considered one of the all-time best action sequences in movie history.

PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

According to The Digital Fix, Kilmer confirmed the Marines had picked up on the sequence and started using it in training, saying: “I heard something really flattering. There’s a shot where I run out of bullets, I change a mag, and I go back to firing.

“I think it’s the Marines, they show the clip and say ‘Tell those maggots if you can’t change a clip as fast as this actor then get out of my army’.” How cool is that?

Earlier this year, Pacino drove fans of the film wild when he said he’d like Timothee Chalamet to play him in a Heat prequel.

What’s more, Pacino not only praised Chalamet’s Oscar-nominated acting abilities, but said the heartthrob has ‘great looks’.

Pacino was speaking alongside De Niro at the Tribeca Film Festival in June, and his comments were reported on by Variety, with the outlet noting that the audience ‘burst into applause’.

Pacino and De Niro were taking part in a panel to celebrate Heat’s 25th anniversary (a milestone delayed by the pandemic) when the former was asked who he’d like to see take on the role of Hanna should a prequel go into production.

Pacino said: “Timothée Chalamet. I mean, he’s a wonderful actor. Great looks.”

The A-lister’s comments came shortly after Mann confirmed that a sequel/prequel to Heat was in the works.

Heat 2 tells the story of Detective Hanna, Neil McCauley, Chris Shiherlis, and Nate in two different timelines.

The later timeline takes place seven years after the conclusion of the original film, while the prequel might show you how the various characters evolved into their various positions of power.

“I always wanted to explore the early lives of these guys,” Mann said. “Also, to find a way to bring the past into the present and the present being about 2002, seven years after the events of Heat the movie.”