In “The Making of ‘Heat'” documentary, Mann says his premise examines the notion that “each person is a universe unto himself.” “Everybody has a life,” he explains. “We tend to two-dimensionalize antagonists in a motion picture. To me, it’s much more fascinating if I, and the actors, and everybody else have the ability to imagine, and expand, and inflate that into the dimensionality of a life. So that was the idea. And ‘Heat,’ when you do what I do, this is what gets you going.”

This definitely doesn’t get you going in the direction of stock villainy. Producer Art Linson adds, “[Mann] just let you see what is. And so suddenly you realize that the cop’s personal life is as truly f***ed up as the robber’s personal life, and that both of them, in as many ways, have to deal with the exact same issues in dealing with the same integrity, or the same lack of integrity as the other.”