Red Heat (1988) Reviews

• So what if it's a cliche

  MovieLuvaMatt2003-07-11

  It's a fun action-comedy and that's that! You can make all the arguments you want. This is definitely not for the discerning viewer. Maybe I'm just easily satisfied by the buddy cop genre. Plus, I love Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies, in general. His action scenes are always fun to watch, and he always seems to come up with great one-liners. In this case, he spouts out a few dryly humorous lines as his stonefaced Russian character. Jim Belushi provides most of the laughs, though, as his unorthodox partner. They both do a good job, though Arnold's Russian accent seems quite strained. Then again, as the film heats up, you really don't pay attention to details like that. Also look out for the beautiful Gena Gershon in an early performance. Those in the mood for "Henry V" should definitely steer clear. Those in the mood for mindless buddy cop fluff that'll keep you excited and keep you laughing should check this movie out. My score: 7 (out of 10)

  More

• Good Movie

  matthew-t-shelton2008-03-26

  I really liked this movie. I have a thing for late 80's action flicks like Beverly Hills Cop or 48 hrs. I thought this was pretty good movie. One of the members on here said Belushi's character was the worst part of the movie. I thought Belushi was pretty good and comedic. I love the dialogue in the movie between Danko and Ridzik at the coffee shop. Overall I would definitely recommend this movie. I also find the content to be appealing. Russian Mob and drug smuggling. I also thought the bad guy Viktor was a really cool part played by Ed O'Ross who also plays Dutch Schultz right hand man in Hoodlum which is not nearly as good as Red Heat.

  More

• A buddy film that works and works well

  chvylvr802003-03-12

  Red Heat is a surprisingly good movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi have good chemistry in this Russian cop/cop buddy film. In this film at least it makes sense for Arnie to have an accent. There is some good lines and the back and forth between these two is pretty funny sometimes. When Jim Belushi plays a cop he puts on this irreverant "I don't like the rules but I get things done" style. It is this style combined with Arnold's "complete objective at all costs" style that makes this film work. The footage that was shot in Red Square is breathtaking, and overall the movie manages to take a basic plot and make it entertaining. On a side note, the holdout gun used by the villian (Ed O'Ross) in the movie is pretty damn cool if you're into that kind of thing. Bottom Line: This is worth getting, or you can rent it every once and awhile if you can only take Arnold for so long.

  More

• From the golden period of Schwarzenegger

  Ziya902009-12-12

  The movie is a very good and stylish action, but such movies are not appreciated in comparison with the recent action movies which is pretty strange. For example, even the rating of awful Transporter 3 is higher than Red Heat. You probably know that critics hate Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Van Damme, also they hate action genre probably, so according to them, Schwarzenegger is an untalented muscle mass who can impress only children and his movies are shame. Schwarzenegger is not a Jack Lemmon or Sean Penn or Brad Pitt, but he has a pulling power and is great acting necessary for action movies? I ask this already asked question. By the way, I think that his performance in The Terminator 2 was outstanding. And as an action star, he is much better than new action stars. He made very bad movies yes, but everyone does that, doesn't? One of the criticisms of the critics is that he kills people, so the movie supports individual justice (killing criminals instead of imprisoning etc.) Well, most of action movies are like that, but they do not object, when it comes Tarantino movies or David Cronenberg movies like A History of Violence. Red Heat does not include a lot of action scenes, or action scenes are not 'big', but it is very stylish thanks to Walter Hill, one of my all time favorite directors and fun. There is a key scene, when I was a child, I used to become Arnold Schwarzenegger and do what he does in the scene. He was one of my childhood heroes. Those days and his films are pleasant memories for me. Returning to Red Heat, it is from Schwarzenegger's golden period. Today, they cannot make action movies like Red Heat.

  More

• I don't want this guy rolling through town like the Red Army

  sol12182006-11-14

  **SPOILERS** Filmed in Moscow USSR, the first US movie even filmed in what's now the former Soviet Union, and Chicago USA "Red Heat" is a lot more then the usual buddy/cops movies of those days. Where there were two cops totally incompatible with each other having, or being forced, to work together. The movie is more like a clash of political philosophies, Capitalism Vrs Communism, then anything else. We get to see Moscow police captain Ivan Danko, Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger, flex his bulging muscles when he goes into a bath-house looking for a gang of Georgain drug dealers. In no time at all Danko turns he entire place into a wild and crazy free for all taking out a number of muscle men, in and out of he bath-house. Danko gets the information that he was looking for on where the gang leader Victor Rosta, Ed O'Ross,is to be found; in the Durzhba Café in the little Georgia section of Moscow. Later Danko and his partner Yuri Ogarkov,Oleg Vidov, confronts the Georgian drug dealers and their boss Rosta where there a a wild shootout where Yuri is killed and Rosta and a number of is gang escapes. It's later when the Moscow PD gets the news that Rosta was arrested, for a minor traffic violation, in of all places Chicago that Danko is sent to the United States to expedite him back to the Soviet Union. Danko is told by his superiors not to mentions a word to the US and Chicago law enforcement officials to what Rosta is wanted for. The Soviet leaders don't want it to get out that they, like the US, have a serious and home grown drug problem. Danko looking stiff an a bit uncomfortable at the Chicago O'Hare Airport is assigned Chicago Det. Art Ridzik, James Belushi,to show him around the city until he finally gets all the papers in order to take Rosta back to the USSR. Everything goes according to plan until Rosta is rescued, with Danko almost losing his life in the shooting, by this notorious black Chicago drug gang called the Shaveheads whom Rosta was working with. The movie then really starts to pick up with Danko now not only in trouble with the Chicago PD, for his very un-Maranda-like police tactics, but also with his Soviet police superiors for letting Rosta get away. Top rate police action thriller with Danko and Ridzik turning the city of Chicago upside down in trying to find the fugitive Rosta who's involved in a major drug deal, with the Shaveheads, that's about to go down at a city bus depot. Danko shows that he's as mentally smart as he's physically powerful by him figuring out what Rosta & Co are up to by renting Rosta's former hotel room #302, knowing that he left evidence of his drug dealings there. Danko wisely putting down on the hotel register a wrong number #303 to trick Rosa and his boys who later blast into room #303 thinking that Danko was there and ending up getting wasted by him in the resulting shootout. Rosta turns out to be as ruthless and deceptive as he ever was back in the Soviet Union. Double-crossing his allies the Shaveheads by taking the money he was to give them for the drugs that they were to supply him with. Rosta even having his American wife, that he paid $10,000.00 to marry him so he can be a US citizen, part-time aerobics instructor and full-time hooker Cat Manzetti, Gina Gershon, murdered together with one of his Georgian Confederates after he felt that they were no longer of any use to him. Danko now completely out of control with Det. Ridzik now fully supporting him, Ridzik by now saw that Danko's way of doing things was far better then that of the Chicago PD, has it out with Rosta in a mad and dangerous bus chase and demolition derby game. This wild and insane action almost causes as much damage to the city of Chicago as the great fire of 1871 did with Rosta finally being put down and out in a "High Noon" western style shootout. Just as good, if not better, as most of Arnold's more popular films it's in "Red Heat" that he finally puts it all together not just in the actions sequences but in his comical interacting with his American police partner James Belushi playing Det. Ridzik. With all the shooting and destruction over and Danko about to fly back home to Moscow he, it's traditional among departing friends he tells him, hand over his very expensive-looking watch to Ridzik who gladly give him his thinking that he got the best of the bargain. It turns out that Danko had a cheap $20.00 East-German made watch when Ridzik in exchange gave him and expensive $1,000.00 US/Swiss made one! The anti-capitalistic Soviet Ivan Danko learned how to be a capitalist a lot faster and better then the pro-capitalistic American Art Ridzik did.

  More