Red Heat (1988)

 

Director Walter Hill is one of those guys responsible for making essentially 'guy films'. You know it's going to have lots of swearing, manly men, guns blazing and the bare (pun intended) minimum of female cast members. Is it entertaining? Most of the time: absolutely! Is it for an audience comprised of teenage boys? Again: absolutely! 

They sure are fun, though.

Years after he made '48 Hrs', Hill returned to this formula (sort of) with this one. The only problem is the chemistry between our leads isn't much to speak of, alas. 

In Moscou, officer Ivan Danko is on the hunt for the criminal Viktor Rosta. He gets close to arresting him, but Rosta kills his partner. 

Yes, this one has all the clichés.

Rosta flees to the US, but gets arrested for running a red light. Danko is then sent to the US to collect Rosta, but he is not allowed to shed any light on why this guy is so important to Russian law enforcement. Danko meets up with Art Ridzik, a foul-mouthed officer who is a bit of a douche, actually. But when his partner is shot by Rosta's goons during a breakout, it is now on and we have two officers hunting the same man for the same reason. 

Will they settle their differences? And are the cultural oppositions too large to work against them?

Yes and no. Literally. 

On paper, this seems like a surefire hit, but in practice, it is just enjoyable but nothing special. I really like both Jim Belushi and Arnold Schwarzenegger, but they don't really have any chemistry going. Compare it to Nolte and Murphy in '48 Hrs' and you find this one lacking. Arnold seems to have been instructed to act like the Terminator and is incredibly stiff and Belushi feels like an arsehat in this role. 

But the rest of the cast is pretty impressive with people like Laurence Fishburne and Peter Boyle present and several other actors one could recognize. However, they don't really add anything. 

Don't expect Gina Gershon to do a lot either. When she is introduced, you'd assume we'd finally get an interesting female character, but she is then unceremoniously killed off screen, which is brushed aside incredibly rapidly. So much for the ladies, I guess.

But who does look and feel the part, is Ed O'Ross as the villainous Rosta. His look and demeanour is spot on and you can tell he is enjoying playing the horrendous bad guy. I'm sure he is a very nice person in real life, but he is so well cast as an evildoer, it almost becomes poetry. 

Not a lot to say for the rest, really. The action is fine and the film as a whole is fun if you're up for some mindless action, but there are better projects with the same setup out there.