Hunters and their prey--Neil and his professional criminal crew hunt to score big money targets (banks, vaults, armored cars) and are, in turn, hunted by Lt. Vincent Hanna and his team of cops in the Robbery/Homicide police division. A botched job puts Hanna onto their trail while they regroup and try to put together one last big 'retirement' score. Neil and Vincent are similar in many ways, including their troubled personal lives. At a crucial moment in his life, Neil disobeys the dictum taught to him long ago by his criminal mentor--'Never have anything in your life that you can't walk out on in thirty seconds flat, if you spot the heat coming around the corner'--as he falls in love. Thus the stage is set for the suspenseful ending....
Written by Tad Dibbern <DIBBERN_D@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>
One of the only scenes in the movie in which Neil Mccauley (Robert De Niro) smiles is when he sees Donald Breedan (Dennis Haysbert) in the diners' kitchen while working as a short order cook. He also smiles when Nate (Jon Voight) tells him in the car that Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) thinks he's "sharp." He might also be smiling as he watches Hanna's antics as he photographs them in the container yard, and again as he walks towards the car to Eady after wasting Waingro (Kevin Gage). He also smiles briefly toward the end of his conversation with Vincent in the diner.
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Goofs
Revealing mistakes:
At the beginning of the sequence where Hanna drives up to a light, stops his car, and throws out his TV set, two extras on the left sidewalk can be seen waiting for the 'action' cue before they start walking.
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