THE HEAT
Iran, 2007, 100 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Mohammed Ali Sajadi.
The Heat is very much influenced by Hollywood. One of the characters refers to another as watching too many action movies. The writer and director has obviously looked at many Hollywood films, police action films and television series. This film might almost be called a replica. It is well crafted, has interesting characters, a complicated robbery plot, investigation.
The film also has some action chases as well as a car crash and an explosion – again, American-style.
The film shows the effect of globalisation – but most national cinemas look towards Hollywood, admire the style and craft, want to imitate them and make similar films. Because of this, the film could have universal interest and appeal as a police action story.
1.An Iranian thriller? Police story? Using American models, successfully, universal interest and appeal?
2.Teheran, the city streets, the stores, homes, precincts? The musical score?
3.The editing and pace, the special effects, the chases and crashes, the shoot-outs?
4.The introduction to the police, the guns, clothes, the plainclothes detectives, tension, the factory, the dolls and the laughter? The collage to the shoot-out, the injured, the shop and the doll laughing again?
5.The police, Reza as the boss, American style, the second-in-command, the fat assistant, the boss? The discussions and theories? Tactics? Surveillance in the hospital, the victim being murdered, the chase across the roofs, the conference, the mole and his being blackmailed, the camera, phones and detection? The robbery, the arrival, the pram? Frustrated, the interrogation and torture? Playacting?
6.The world of the criminals, the boss and his car, buying the gun, his apartment, his being obsessive about cleaning, cooking? Mopping and the phone ringing? Communication? His decision-making? The assistant and the boss’s attraction to him? His engineering the hospital death? The guns at the market? The recruit, taking the woman? Vengeful?
7.The assistant, his cheekiness, in the car with the boss, going to the hospital, the killing and the chase, his girlfriend, entry? The window-cleaner? The bike, the escape, the reports? The guns, the recruit, the robbery, his being wounded? The kidnapping, the phone call, his being caught? His winking? In the car, getting out, his death – and winking at the end?
8.Reza, the sequences with his mother, playing with his nephew, the nephew with the gun, the bonds with his sister, his nightmares and the memory of the death of his wife? Helping the woman – meeting her in the hospital, ringing, at home, the situation in a mess, the final phone calls, the information, the death of the woman, his grief? A future? With his sister and nephew?
9.His mother, her care, her dreams, the abduction?
10.The woman, her marriage, her child, the interactions with Reza, at home, her husband and his career, the boss and his hold over her, the phone call and the information, the betrayal?
11.The girl, her collaboration with the gangster’s assistant, in the crimes?
12.The policeman and the gangster’s hold over him, the blackmail, his being brought to the boss? The confrontation?
13.The finale, closing in, the chase and the shoot-out?
14.A police show, themes of crime and punishment, right and wrong?
