Red Heat (1988)

Very well executed

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Not many Schwarzenegger movies got a worse IMDB score than this one. I'll go along with that. At the very beginning of this movie, the viewer is shown gratuitous shots of Arnold's naked ass, giving people who enjoy that kind of thing reason enough to praise this movie, but at the same time, symbolizing what I thought of it.I think maybe the worst part of this movie is the dialog. When Jim Belushi said "Stupid G**damn f***ing Russians!" it took all my willpower not to hit the stop button. I like Jim Belushi in just about anything, but his acting was awful in this movie, as was everyone else's. To their credit however, they didn't have much to work with as the writing was atrocious. A five year old could write a more watchable movie. As far as the Russian accents go, the actors take a stereotypical approach, omitting the word "the" while they invoke the phoniest accents I've ever heard. Speaking of bad acting, a must-have for every decent cop movie is a good villain who gives the viewer reason enough to dislike them, but this one tries too hard and by the end of the movie, you don't even care what happens to him.I give this movie three stars and I think that's pretty generous for a movie I will never watch again.

No introduction needed here in regards to the story - at least there's quite a bit of humor to evenly match the brilliant action scenes, not many films are like this, and that makes one fact clear : it's a recipe for a very good script. This has to be one of my favorite 1980's Arnold Schwarzenegger films. As tough, stoic and uncompromising Captain Ivan Danko of the Moscow Police he is hunting a brutal Georgian drugs kingpin who has fled the Soviet Union and ended up in Chicago. Sent by his superiors to apprehend and discreetly return this elusive criminal to the Soviet Union Danko soon finds himself working with James Belushi's wise cracking 'slob-cop'. This violent thriller is very reminiscent of director Walter Hill's other male buddy action movie "48 Hours" as both protagonists defy police protocol in order to capture the man responsible for the death of their partners. The contrast between the chaotic capitalist excesses of Chicago and Danko's single minded Terminatoresque pursuit of his man forms the basis of much of the film's humour where Danko's pithy observations punctuate this entertaining action movie. And on to Belushi, who puts in his greatest performance, and steals the movie away from everyone else, and not many can do this with Schwarzenegger. Whenever Belushi is on screen, the film springs to life, and it turns from an average cop movie, to something a little bit more special.All of the above sounds pretty much the standard Hollywood cop story formula and that does not bode well but this movie wins on its execution and balance. It's very well edited with a constant but not overwhelming flow of action and a script that gives both Belushi and Schwarzenegger occasion to deliver moments of levity. Both leads are well cast and they do a good job together and you can believe not just in the characters but in the way that they rub along together. Despite the fact that parts of the movie were shot in Russia and Eastern Europe using local actors, the movie does not seem to move beyond a stereotyped view of the people and country. That is really just a small criticism though and the important thing is that this is one of the best buddy-cop movies around.Overall rating: 9 out of 10.

"Red Heat" is very much of the mismatched cops formula, but there's also a mutual respect bubbling underneath. That, coupled with wit that never hijacks the movie are its winning qualities. Also, Schwarzenegger's not bad as a Russian. And the culture-clash humor isn't as clumsy as you'd think. Arnold's reaction to hotel porn is pretty great. It's all in the way he plays that scene.Both actors are likable in their respective molds; Arnold as the unyielding honorable Russian, Belushi as the smart-mouthed jaded cop. But the leads really sell this thing, and I ended up liking Belushi a lot more than I'd expected. Package all of this in a violent Walter Hill actioner and it's a good movie indeed.7/10

"Red Heat" has a great director and two actors ideally suited to its admittedly trite premise, but then takes forty four minutes to get it's nonsensical plot sorted out so that the premise can come to the forefront. After all that it really only has two memorable scenes: the weird bit at the beginning with a unisex Russian spa and Arnie grabbing a burning rock before punching someone, and a bit right at the very end where Arnie and Belushi go after the villain - a perfectly cast Ed O'Ross - in a bus.These were the only bits that showed be something different, and interesting.Aside from that it's the typical mismatched buddy cop movie, with two guys who hate each other at first and then learn to appreciate each other.But it didn't have to take so long to get there. The plot holds us up and needlessly complicates things with something about a key that opens a locker and someone with half a hundred dollar note. You know this stuff isn't really important; it's about the action and the chemistry between our two heroes.You get the latter more than the former.