Red Heat (1988) *** (out of 4)After his partner is killed in Russia, Ivan Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger) travels to Chicago where the killer is trying to get a major drug deal going. he teams up with Detective Art Ridzik (James Belushi) and before long the two are battling each other as well as the dealers.Walter Hill is once again back doing a cop-buddy picture after the success of 48 HOURS. I'm not going to sit here and say that RED HEAT is on the same level because it clearly isn't but if you're a fan of violent action movies from the 80's then this here is one you'll want to check out. There's a lot of really good stuff here including some strong performances, some funny dialogue and of course there's Hill's eye for violence and action.I must admit that I was surprised at how good Schwarzenegger was here. Sure, he's basically playing the silent type that you'd expect him to but he was believable in the part and I thought quite effective. Belushi was also a lot of fun and to this day I think he's a very underrated actor. The two leads share some good chemistry together and make for some nice laughs. You've also got some known supporting players including Peter Boyle Larry Fishburne, Gina Gershon and Richard Bright.The Chicago setting was perfect for this type of film and Hill knows how to make a city another character. The director is an expert at this type of action film so needless to say the film is very strong here. There are some terrific shoot outs and blood death scenes that earn the R-rating so fans of that stuff will have even more to enjoy. The story itself isn't the most original but it makes for good use for the comedy and action.RED HEAT isn't a masterpiece but it's certainly an entertaining action film.

Red Heat might be a derivative buddy-cop action-comedy but does it really matter? No. It might be a bit dated now but you cannot deny that Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi made a great odd-couple of police officers who are polar opposites forced to work together.Highly decorated Moscow Police Captain Ivan Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator) travels to Chicago where ruthless drug dealer Viktor Rostavili (Ed O'Ross, Lethal Weapon) has been located and arrested after evading Moscow Police. There, Ivan Danko meets uncouth and reckless Chicago Police Detective Art Ridzik (James Belushi, K-9) while Viktor is in custody. When the extradition goes wrong after Ivan is ambushed by a group of thugs and break Viktor out of custody, Ivan and Art must stop butting heads and work together to take down Viktor.Arnold Schwarzenegger is perfectly cast as the highly disciplined Ivan Danko yet finds himself like a fish out of water in Chicago, a far cry from Moscow. James Belushi is tailor made for comedic roles and his role as the unorthodox police detective Art Ridzik is a perfect mismatch with Arnold. Ed O'Ross has a good role as the main villain Viktor Rostavili. The rest of the supporting cast including the late Peter Boyle (Everybody Loves Raymond), Gina Gershon (Face/Off), Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), Pruitt Taylor Vince (Natural Born Killers), Richard Bright (The Godfather) and Brion James (Blade Runner) also pop up throughout the movie.Director Walter Hill might have tried to resurrect his formula that worked a treat in 48 Hrs. (1982) and recycle it here, but it is something that be hit and miss. The end result was a moderate success, but there's only so many times you can try it and use it. Use it too many times, audiences are going to dismiss it and treat it with indifference for being unoriginal.Red Heat may not be one of the best movies of all time and it is often criticized for being predictable, derivative and dated now. Personally, none of that really matters at all. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've seen Red Heat, and I can say that it is a worthy time filler that is still a lot of fun.7/10.

"Red Heat" has a great director and two actors ideally suited to its admittedly trite premise, but then takes forty four minutes to get it's nonsensical plot sorted out so that the premise can come to the forefront. After all that it really only has two memorable scenes: the weird bit at the beginning with a unisex Russian spa and Arnie grabbing a burning rock before punching someone, and a bit right at the very end where Arnie and Belushi go after the villain - a perfectly cast Ed O'Ross - in a bus.These were the only bits that showed be something different, and interesting.Aside from that it's the typical mismatched buddy cop movie, with two guys who hate each other at first and then learn to appreciate each other.But it didn't have to take so long to get there. The plot holds us up and needlessly complicates things with something about a key that opens a locker and someone with half a hundred dollar note. You know this stuff isn't really important; it's about the action and the chemistry between our two heroes.You get the latter more than the former.

Tough Russian cop Captain Ivan Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent to America to capture Georgian criminal Viktor Rostavili (Ed O'Ross), who is in Chicago master-minding a massive international drugs operation. Unaccustomed to U.S. police procedure, the fish-out-of-water cop employs no-nonsense, Soviet-style law enforcement to get his job done, much to the dismay of brash American detective Art Ridzik (James Belushi), with whom he has been partnered.The problem with this film is that it doesn't live up to its title: instead of a red hot action flick that burns up the screen with intense ballistic gunfights and spectacular scenes of destruction and chaos, we get a rather tepid buddy cop movie, heavy on the humour and frustratingly light on the carnage. This mightn't have been so bad if the comedy had worked well, or if there had at least been some kind of chemistry between the leads, but the predictable script rarely delivers decent laughs and James Belushi makes for an uncharismatic foil to Arnie's efficient, stoic bad-ass.When the action does kick in, it's all too brief and staged with surprisingly little style or imagination by director Walter Hill. The film's closing action scene, which sees Danko and Viktor careering through Chicago in buses, lacks the much needed wow factor, feeling more like a routine mid-film moment rather than a satisfyingly climactic finalé. All told, Red Heat is far from Arnie's best and not a patch on Lethal Weapon, the previous year's buddy cop blockbuster.