On the surface, Michael Mann's 1995 heist film HEAT and John Carpenter's 1982 suspense thriller The Thing don't seem to have many similarities. You'd be wrong to assume that's the case though.
First and foremost, let's get things straight: HEAT is my absolute all-time favourite film, and The Thing is my favourite horror film so if it seems like I'm rambling on, chances are I am. I was watching The Thing the other night when I realised how similar the endings to the two films are. At the end of HEAT, Detective Hanna (Al Pacino) is forced to kill bank robber Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro). Throughout the film, a common bond, an almost friendship develops between the two as a mutual respect is held for the other. Both men are good at their job, but both despise what they do and would be rather doing something else. Hanna is tired of the dead prostitutes and the general sadness that comes with being a homicide detective, whilst McCauley is tired of running from the law and wants to settle down with his new grilfriend Eady (Amy Brennemen). Both however, are stuck doing what they are because they don't know how to do anything else (and each agrees that they don't want to do anything else). The respect comes to the forefront during a conversation the two have in a diner after Hanna pulls McCauley over. Knowing Hanna can't arrest him or charge him with anything since there isn't any evidence, McCauley takes him up on the offer and the two talk about life, their dreams and most importantly, that they'll do whatever it takes to get out alive.
Hanna finally finds McCauley with enough to charge him with after he kills an old rival in a hotel suite. McCauley has to leave Eady behind to escape Hanna, but Hanna eventually catches up with him at the end of a runway at a small airport. Hanna shoots McCauley, the bullets forcing McCauley back, making him rest on a stantion. Dying, McCauley extends his hand to shake Hanna's. Hanna barely looks McCauley in the eyes, and the lights from the airfield shine on Hanna's making it look like he has tears in his. Hanna holds McCauley's hand as he dies, and the credits roll.
It may seem hard to extrapolate this to ending of The Thing, but bare with me. In The Thing, an alien lifeform takes over a crew of scientists in Antarctica one-by-one. The Thing imitates whatever creature it can as to be undetected, it uses the imiation as a form of self-defense. The alien first arrives as a huskie dog, being shot at by two Norweigian men. The huskie mutates, eating members of the crew and imitating others. It leads each person to be totally untrusting of one another, as it can't be certain who is human and who is not. At the end of the film, only MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Childs (Keith David) are left standing. MacReady has killed the monster by blowing it up in an underground mine, and he returns to outside the camp where he finds Childs, who has been missing for the final act of the film. Childs claims he got lost in the storm that surrounded the finale. I say claims because how can anyone know he's telling the truth. He could be, or he could be an alien. With both of them knowing the uncertainties of who the other really is, they both decide to drink alcohol in the snow until the arctic freeze claims them. Earlier on, MacReady says that this "Thing" can't be let out otherwise everyone on earth would be at risk. The final lines of the film sum up the realisation that they have to sacrifice themselves for the greater good:
Childs: What do we do now?
MacReady: Why don't we just... wait here for a little while... see what happens...
The main similarity I'm going for here, is once again it's two men that are just aiming to survive, and they understand that either one or both of them will have to lose that battle. While we don't see a true finale like the shooting in HEAT, we are left to wonder if MacReady and Childs do turn on each other, or whether they let the cold take them. It's hinted that that is the case as MacReady says, "I don't think either one of us is in much shape to do anything about it."
While MacReady and Childs aren't true enemies throughout the film, their differences are highlighted as the tension builds. Childs doesn't trust MacReady's experiment when he burns samples of each person's blood to see in who The Thing is hiding. The only thing Hanna and McCauley can trust is that one of them will be dead when all is said and done. By the end of each film, through each person's lack of trust for the other, Hanna trusts he did the right thing in killing McCauley, and even McCauley know this to be true. MacReady and Childs trust the other knows they should wait to die, than to fight over who is who they say they are. In the end, both films end on a somber tone. Hanna will go back to his family a rather empty shell, knowing he had to kill someone he had a mutual respect for, and in some cases saw a little of himself in. MacReady and Childs sit in their somber state with the knowledge that death awaits. The tone is hightened by Ennio Morricone's excellent soundtrack, the main chilling theme playing over a wide shot of the camp, emphasising the loneliness in the situation.
I may be clutching at straws and seeing things that just aren't there, but the theme of a mutual respect between men and the realisation that death awaits one or both of them really got me thinking about how these films are similar. The relationships between the two men in each are not chosen, they are forced. Hanna and McCauley are playing cops and robbers whilst MacReady and Childs are co-workers. None of the characters have any reason to outwardly like the other, which makes the mutual respect aspect even more important as it's something that grows between each pair through extreme circumstances.
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