Red Heat
Red Heat
R | 17 June 1988 (USA)

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A tough Russian policeman is forced to partner up with a cocky Chicago police detective when he is sent to Chicago to apprehend a Georgian drug lord who killed his partner and fled the country.

Reviews
Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.
GamerTab That was an excellent one.
Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
frickabee 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.
SnoopyStyle Moscow Police Captain Ivan Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger) loses his partner while trying to take down drug lord Viktor Rosta. Viktor escapes to America. Later, he is captured in Chicago and Ivan arrives to extradite him. Viktor is out to avenge his brother killed by Ivan. Det. Sgt. Art Ridzik (James Belushi) is forced to partner with the Russian after Viktor escapes with the help of his crew.This Walter Hill film is a functional buddy cop movie. The comedy isn't that great. Arnie is a solid Russian but he's not that funny in this role. Belushi is a jokey loud-mouth. They are lots of old style gun action. This is nothing special although Arnie is pretty good as a robotic communist. I'm not sure that's a surprise.
Maziun "Red heat" is somewhere in the middle when it comes to Schwarzenegger movies. It 's not one of his greatest movies but it's definitely far from being terrible. If you like action comedies , you'll like this one. It's nothing new , but the formula works."Red heat" was made in the age of glasnost and perestroika . That explains the idea of combining a Russian cop with an American one. It's a tribute to the increasing spirit of détente between East and West. It also could be a reason why the movie was successful at the box office , while "Rambo 3" failed (Stallone didn't noticed that fighting Russians isn't cool anymore). "Red Heat" became the first American film for which permission was granted by the Soviet authorities to shoot in Red Square itself.Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the part of Russian supercop Ivan Danko. He fits the role perfectly , because of his size and looks. Even his accent works , although it does sound more German than Slavic. Arnold is stoic , quiet and violent. He is simply believable. His partner in this movie is Polish American cop Art Ridzik played by Jim Belushi. Belushi is likable enough as the foul mouthed cop from Chicago. His a typical comic relief that tries to put a funny one liner as often as it possible. Belushi sometimes overacts and sometimes is more annoying than funny , but overall he does a good job here. The most laughs however come from Arnold and the cultural differences between Russia and USA.Director Walter Hill reuses the same formula from "48 hours". Here the contrasts are not just between the personalities of the cop duo , but also between the American and Soviet systems of law enforcement. "This Chicago is very strange city. Your crime is organized, but your police is not." The film itself is just alright, neither good not bad. There's no real problem or fault with "Red Heat" except that it offers a fare amount (but just not enough) of laughs and thrills. There is no real chemistry between Belushi and Schwarzenegger. The plot is rather muddled and doesn't offer any real mystery. There are some familiar faces in the supporting roles – Peter Boyle ("Dream team") , Laurence Fishburne ("Matrix") , Gina Gershon and Brion James ("Blade runner") , but they aren't given anything interesting to do. The score by James Horner is neither good or bad (you can hear the echo of "Gorky Park" score here).The action scenes are well shot and edited. You can clearly see what's going on and there's none of that modern shaky hand-held camera movement or ultra quick cut editing. Thank God. The movie has few memorable scenes : the fight in sauna (hilarious) , the leg scene (awesome, just watch the movie) and the bus chase (quite exciting , if not copied from "48 hours") .I give it 5/10. Some comedic value , some action , some nice one-liners. It doesn't break any new ground , but it delivers quite well what it promises . Fans of the genre should be satisfied.
bowmanblue Like many, I became a fan of Arnie in the late eighties/early nineties, however, despite about three viewings of 'Red Heat' I never really liked it. Until now. My initial disapproval of the film was the 'lack of action.' I guess I was too used to the big man mowing down hordes of bad-guys with machine guns, ala Commando, Predator and Terminator.But, although the action scenes are definitely subdued (when comparing them to Schwarzenegger's other output), there is actually some in there somewhere. I guess that 'Red Heat' normally gets lumped into Arnie's other work and so a lot of people call it an 'action' movie. As I said, there are a few shoot-outs and car chase, but 'action' is second to its primary genre, which is 'buddy cop' film.When you ignore the lack of cracking skulls and just focus on the relationship between the two mismatched leads, i.e. the tough Russian cop and wacky Chicago detective, then you'll find this could well be the most perfectly-formed buddy cop movie ever. The Schwarzenegger and Belushi combo works brilliantly. Their opposite personas play of each other and Red Heat could almost be considered a comedy rather than an action movie based on how many one-liners there are in there.Basically, if you're looking for out and out action, then this movie will probably fall short of your expectations (like it did with me for so many years). However, if you're looking for a no-frills buddy cop film that is just simple and effective, then this one will fill an hour and a half of your life. It's not 'classic' Schwarzenegger, but it does the job.