'Heat 2': Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner's sequel is a must-read for fans of the film

"Heat 2" (William Morrow, 480 pp., ★★★ out of four) – both prequel and sequel to Michael Mann’s iconic 1995 film starring Al Pacino as LAPD Lt. Vincent Hanna and Robert De Niro as violent professional thief Neil McCauley – is sort of an odd bird.

When was the last time one of cinema’s great auteurs decided that instead of filming a sequel to a movie (that, frankly, did not call out for a sequel in any form), opted instead to write a novel? It seems like a recipe for disaster. Mann wisely brought in Edgar Award-winning author Meg Gardiner as his co-writer and the partnership resulted in a novel that is both obviously Mann’s – entirely overlong, filled with ready-to-shoot atmospheric touches and over-the-top violence – and obviously Gardiner’s – lean dialogue that moves like a bullet, clever use of setting and perfect scene setup.

The novel is in sure hands.

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Still, if you’ve seen "Heat," you already know the big plot point that makes a sequel seem superfluous: McCauley, the boss of a violent team of professional thieves, is killed by Hanna at the end of the movie, along with most of his crew, save for Chris Shiherlis (played by Val Kilmer, at the height of his powers), who now must go on the run. If you haven’t seen "Heat," the balance of the film is recounted in the book’s prologue, which is helpful, if dry.

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The novel then toggles between both Hanna and McCauley’s origin stories in the late 1980s in Chicago and, eventually, along the Mexican border, where the men dance toward each other in the space of three different crimes: a violent and sexually sadistic home invasion and a botched home invasion, both being investigated by Hanna, and a frankly brilliant bank vault heist headlined by McCauley. It’s here some of Mann and Gardiner’s best work happens as the two men circle unseen, only their edges meeting. But we see it, and it’s thrilling.

The novel then jumps forward to follow Shiherlis as he attempts to carve out his own niche in South America after the events of "Heat," before eventually returning to LA in 2000 in hopes of exacting revenge on Hanna. Shiherlis lacks the noirish charm and wit, plus casual menace, that Hanna and McCauley possess. In the film, Kilmer was able to imbue the character with more depth than he has here, simply by flashing a smile, because the actor’s warmth is hard to hide, which makes his ability to do bad, bad things more fun to see. On the page, he’s too casually drawn, his emotional core too base. He’s a second banana forced into a role too large for him.

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That McCauley is both dead and alive presents the authors with a unique problem: How to wrest drama out of scenes meant to be life and death? They respond by turning McCauley’s backstory into an exploration of his code – he’s always willing to leave everything behind within 30 seconds if he feels the heat around the corner – which makes his sections instructional, but also captivating in terms of character development. The same can be said for Hanna’s early sections. He’s obsessed when we met him in "Heat" because the job requires nothing less, even if that means taking a bump of coke to stay up to do the job.

"Heat 2" is a must for fans of the film – it’s a perverse joy to spend time in Hanna and McCauley’s heads – and fans of Gardiner’s will find her stretching muscles you might not know she had. For fans of Mann’s, well, he says now he’s going to make this a movie, too. 

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Heat 2': Michael Mann's sequel a must-read for film fans