Red Heat (1988)

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nTitle: Red Heat (1988)

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nDirector: Walter Hill

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nCast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Belushi, Peter Boyle, EdnO’Ross, Laurence Fishburne, Gina Gershon

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nReview:

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nWatching an action film from director Walter Hill is anspecial treat for any lover of action films. Hill’s specialty has always beenntough dudes who shoot guns, spew one liners and blow things up good. His filmsnare the epitome of testosterone fueled action films. In no decade was thisndisplayed better then in the 80’s where Hill made films like 48 Hrs. (1982),nExtreme Prejudice (1987), Johnny Handsome (1989) and the film I’ll be talkingnabout today, Red Heat (1988). His affinity for guns probably comes from hisnlove of Cowboy movies of which he has made a few, in fact, he has said thatneveryone of his films is a western in one way or another, which explains whynthere’s so many shootouts in his films. His love for guns and violence is still goingnstrong to this day, his latest action film was called Bullet to the Head (2012)! Unfortunately, that films dismalnbox office performance (even while starring Stallone himself!) might prove that the time of the violence/gun fillednaction film is over, a time gone, but not forgotten. Yeah, there was a timenwhen action films filled with violence and blood where king in cinemas!  And that time was the 80’s!

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nIn Red Heat Walter Hill collaborated with ArnoldnSchwarzenegger, who at the time was making a pretty good name for himself asnaction film star. When he made Red Heat, Arnold had already made films like ThenTerminator (1984), Commando (1985), Predator (1987) and The Running Man (1987),nback then audiences just couldn’t get enough of ‘The Governator’. In Red HeatnArnold plays Captain Ivan Danko a Russian police man who comes to the UnitednStates looking for Viktor, a Russian drug dealer who’s escaped his country and isntrying to establish himself as a drug dealer in the U.S. Danko is asigned to come to America to aprehend Viktor, and when he does so he is assigned to Detective Sargeant Art Ridzik played by JamesnBelushi. Ridzik is a messy dude who breaks the rules as often as possible, but it is now his job to take care of Danko while he is in America. Innaccordance to buddy cop rule #654, at first Ridzik and Danko don’t get along innthe least, but they soon learn they’ll have to work together if they want tonstop their mutual enemy and who knows, maybe they’ll learn to appreciate each other.

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nThe ‘buddy cop movie’ was alive and kicking back in the 80’s,nthanks in no small part to the success of the Lethal Weapon and Beverly HillsnCop movies which were huge money makers back in those days. Back in the 80’snthese movies strived! Usually in these films, one cop is a ‘by the rules’ typenof guy while the other one is the wild card of the two. One is clean the othernmessy, sometimes they are of different ethnicities or even planets, or a combinationnof all of these. Sometimes one of the cops is alive and the other one is undeadnas was the case in Dead Heat (1988). Notable examples of these type of filmsnare Alien Nation (1989), Tango and Cash (1989) and Black Rain (1989), tonmention but a few of these films. In Red Heat the funny comes from thencombination of having a tight ass Russian cop (Schwarzenegger) team up with ansmart ass/loud mouth American cop played by Belushi. Gotta admit thencombination worked like magic! There’s this one scene where the chief of policenasks Danko how do Russian police men deal with all the stress and Danko repliesndryly:  “Vodka”. So it’s the differences betweennthese two guys that fuels the comedy. The formula used in Red Heat is nothing new for Hill. In fact, it’s not all that different from WalternHill’s own 48 Hrs., on that one we have the same basic formula, two extremelyndifferent individuals having to work together to achieve a goal.

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nBut aside from the comedy, a good body cop movie shouldnalways have good action or else the film risks losing its largely male audience,nso does Red Heat deliver in this respect? Hell yeah, it’s Walter Hill at thenhelm what did you expect? The film starts out with this fight sequence in anRussian bath house, and Arnold kicks the living shit out of some dude whilenrolling around in the snow half naked. Then we move on to a shootout in thenstreets of Russia, a couple of more shoot outs when the film shifts to U.S., andnfinally, the film ends with this spectacular chase sequence through the streetsnof Chicago involving two Greyhound Buses! Now that scene must have taken anwhile to shoot because it’s pretty complex and extensive.  But speaking about this film partially beingnshot in Russia, it’s important to note that this was the first Americannproduction that shot some scenes in the famed Red Square. The story behind that is that the Russian cultural department didn’t give them the permission to shoot there (actually they never even replied the request) so they just took a very small crew, dressed Arnold up as anRussian cop and shot the thing as if it was some sort of amateur film being made. The results are pretty cool and add authenticity to the scenes.

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nRed Heat is a film that comments on the slowly evolvingnsentiments between both countries. Here we have a film with a Russian coming to America; so we have onenof the “Reds” among the Americans, and here’s what’s interesting aboutneverything, he’s the good guy in the film! If you remember correctly, thenRussians used to be the “bad guys”! Red Heat shows us that the way Americansnwere seeing Russians was starting to shift, the Russians were no longer the badnguys because during the last half of the 80’s, treaties were being signednbetween both countries that would put an end to the cold war, so in a way thenfilm is a reflection of this new ideology that was on the horizon; in a couplenof years, the Russians wouldnt be the enemies anymore. Soon the hatrednwould shift towards Saddam Hussein, and later towards Osama Bin Laden. Same asnin Orwell’s 1984, the government keeps shifting their countries hatred towardsnsomething different; the importance being to always keep the profitable (fornthem anyways) state of war. Yes my friends, Red Heat is another film that reflects thenrealities of our lives. But I don’t want to make it sound like this film is allnpolitical; this is actually a very fun buddy cop film filled with action,ncomedy and lots of shoot outs, Walter Hill style! It won’t change your life,nbut it will entertain you for a while.

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nRating:  4 out of 5

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