Al Pacino’s Vincent Hanna in Heat is inspired by real life Chicago detective Chuck Adamson, who hunted down the real Neil McCauley. He's also a composite of other elite detectives. Michael Mann has said Hanna isn’t a typical cop, but a “predator,” he explains…
“Hanna’s a predator. He’s alive when he’s pursuing his prey. And what drives guys like that? Even though Hanna has a moral compass, he’s not there to serve and protect. It really is, as Tom Sizemore says later in the film, 'the action is the juice.'
There’s a kind of cool groove of concentration — a zone he gets into when conclusions are happening very quickly for him and he’s making discoveries. So those are some of the aspects you encounter when you dig into the real folks.”