Red Heat (1988)
(On TV, February 2020) On paper, Red Heat feels inevitable. Arnold Schwarzenegger was near the top of his early fame in 1988, and the idea of making good use of his accent naturally led to him playing a tough cop from behind the then-Iron Curtain. From that point on, you can almost write the rest of the film yourself, so closely does it branch out from that premise and sticks to the buddy-cop plot template. Of course, his American counterpart will be an opposite of Schwarzenegger’s polished image as a Soviet supercop—slobby, loutish, loose with the rules in ways that only Jim Belushi (also near the top of his unexplainable fame at the time) could play. Alas, inconsistent writer-director Walter Hill doesn’t quite know how to maximize the elements at his disposal: the script is a hodgepodge of predictable sequences strung together in haphazard fashion, with some curious lulls to prop up a surprisingly dull plot. Only the ending, making good use of buses for some glass-smashing action, floats above the morass that Hill serves here. There are a few good things here: Schwarzenegger is picture-perfect as a tough policeman, his character has aged fairly well as a (rare) heroic Soviet character in Hollywood movies, and Gina Gershon looks great in an ungrateful role. It’s also cool to see some footage shot in Moscow, including a saluting Schwarzenegger. Alas, Jim Belushi remains obnoxious throughout—his character being only slightly less obnoxious as the very similar one he’d play the following year in K-9. The action is often dull, the plot never sparks and the cinematography has that telltale 1980s softness. In the end, Red Heat is far more interesting as an example of the Schwarzenegger and/or buddy-cop movies of the 1980s than on its own merits.
