Released: 17 June 1988
Director: Walter Hill
Distributor: Tri-Star Pictures
Budget: $29 million (estimated)
Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Belushi, Ed O’Ross, Larry Fishburne, and Peter Boyle

The Plot:
When drug kingpin Viktor Rostavili (O’Ross) kills Captain Ivan Danko’s (Schwarzenegger) partner and flees to the United States, Danko is partnered with Chicago police detective Art Ridzik (Belushi). Echoing the tensions between the US and the Soviet Union, the odd couple must set aside their differences to keep Rostavili from smuggling cocaine into Russia.

The Background:
Following the end of the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union frequently clashed in a “Cold War”, a nearly-fifty-year political stalemate in which the threat of all-out nuclear annihilation was high as tensions escalated between the two superpowers. Consequently, Russians were frequently vilified in Hollywood productions, characterised as stoic, almost machine-like, and cruel, with perhaps the most memorable fictional Russian being the ice-cold genetic freak Captain Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren). In 1987, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover saw critical and financial success as mis-matched police officers in Lethal Weapon (Donner, 1987), which inspired a slew of similar odd-couple, buddy cop action/comedies. With Arnold Schwarzenegger a hot commodity after the success of The Terminator (Cameron, 1984), writer/director Walter Hill combined these two elements into the basic premise of Red Heat and approached Schwarzenegger to star. Despite the lack of a complete script, Schwarzenegger agree to join the production based on Hill’s success with the buddy cop hit 48 Hrs. (Hill, 1982), and Hill purposely aimed to tone down Schwarzenegger’s bombastic persona in favour of a more realistic performance. Schwarzenegger was joined by comedy actor James Belushi, who saw the contentious relationship between their characters as the heart of the movie above all else. With a $34.9 million box office, Red Heat was a modest financial success; it briefly held the number one spot at the box office, but was met with mixed reviews. Many criticised the gratuitous violence and middling pace, though the film has since been seen as a cult classic. Since today is Arnold’s birthday, this is the perfect time to revisit the film and see if it’s worthy of being classified as an under-rated entry in Schwarzenegger’s filmography.

The Review:
Red Heat begins, appropriately enough, in the frigid yet architecturally stunning city of Moscow. There we find Yuri Ogarkov (Oleg Vidov) amidst a bunch of surly, beefed-up Russians and naked babes working out and relaxing in a gym; among them is Captain Ivan Danko, who seemingly fits right in with his intense, stone-faced expression and peak, Olympian physique. They’re there looking for a lead on drug baron Viktor Rostavili, but Danko is forced to take a more direct approach when he’s challenged by the other men. Luckily, Danko is more than capable, handling a boiling-hot stone without flinching and easily beating the shit out of his hulking attackers despite wearing nothing but a little shawl to cover his modesty. The fight spills to the outside where, in the freezing snow, Danko absorbs some comically enhanced shots and demands information on Viktor’s whereabouts, learning that he’s holed up at the Druzhba Café. After a tense confrontation and a shoot-out (that includes the amusing reveal that Rostavili’s underling is hiding cocaine in his artificial leg), Danko pursues and guns down Rostavili’s brother, Vagran (Gábor Koncz), but the man himself manages to slip away after surprising Yuri with a spring-loaded pistol attached to his wrist. Though impassive at his friend’s funeral, Danko is clearly seething and grateful to be given the chance to retrieve Rostavili from Chicago.

While Danko is introduced as a serious, focused man who’s all business on the job, the opposite is true of Art Ridzik, who we first meet ogling women, much to the exasperation of Lieutenant Charlie Stobbs (Fishburne) and Sergeant Max Gallagher (Richard Bright). A natural smart mouth who’s become somewhat disillusioned with the daily grind of the job, Ridzik’s outspoken and cynical nature rubs his superiors the wrong way since he’d rather make snappy quips than focus on the job. Although he facies himself a ladies’ man, Ridzik is beset by rejections at every turn, which he brushes off with a casual disinterest, though he’s frustrated by Stobbs’ low opinion of him (but, it has to be said, not enough to actually buck up his ideas, knuckle down, and be less snarky and lackadaisical). Ridzik almost immediately gets on the wrong side of Danko with his irritating curiosity and sarcastic nature; Ridzik sees chaperoning and being lumbered with Danko as a shitty deal, one akin to babysitting, which is a constant headache to his overly stressed superior, Commander Lou Donnelly (Boyle). Hot-headed and trigger happy, Ridzik is eventually shown to be incensed when Rostavili’s goons callously gun down Gallagher to rescue their boss and at being constantly left in the dark (and the lurch) by Danko’s standoffish nature. Although their personalities and methods clash and Ridzik is irritated at being stuck with “Gumby” and having to deal with his strait-laced, blunt attitude, Ridzik proves invaluable to Danko’s investigation. He takes him to visit the enigmatic, blind, drug dealer Abdul Elijah (Brent Jennings) in prison and learns that Rostavili has been working with the local street gangs to smuggle cocaine into Moscow. Unfortunately, whether because of cruel fate or his own abrasive behaviour and questionable methods, Ridzik is beset by misfortune no matter how hard he tries; he gets hot coffee splashed on his crotch, is forced to endure a tetanus shot, and is constantly being reprimanded even for things out of his control. However, he and Danko have more in common than they’d care to admit, which ultimately leads to them reaching a mutual respect and understanding when it comes to nailing Rostavili by any means necessary.

Although Danko is generally portrayed as a stoic and almost emotionless machine (especially compared to his more emotional and bombastic peers in Chicago) and with an extremely strong sense of duty, he’s not above moments of levity and emotion. He owns a parakeet that he’s extremely protective of, is clearly rattled when his superiors blame him for Rostavili’s escape (even though he did nothing wrong), and shown to have a close relationship with Yuri, one that sees him both amused by his partner’s brand of banter and driven into an obsession towards Rostavili, whom he relentlessly pursues to make pay not just for the laundry list of crimes he’s perpetrated against the Soviet Union, but for Yuri’s death as well. Upon landing in Chicago, Danko doesn’t waste time or words getting right down to business; he bluntly greets his peers and impassively liaises with Donnelly and his officers simply to get his hands on Rostavili and reacts with stoic disinterest when Donnelly and even Ridzik challenge his aggressive methods and unlicensed firearm. Danko’s standoffish demeanour is exacerbated not just by the tensions surrounding the two nations but by his direct orders not to air Russia’s political and social problems in public, and his obvious embarrassment regarding the violent past of his country. It also doesn’t help that he’s largely disgusted by the decadent West and the excess of Capitalism; he despairs at their lack of discipline, the lawlessness of their streets, and their obsession with sex and debauchery. Danko’s has a very methodical approach to his job (even though all he has is a mysterious locker key to go on) and is granted license by Donnelly to continue his investigation since he’s a “loose cannon” that will either get results or take the fall through his actions, but not above being reprimanded when he pushes his luck too far. An extremely private individual, Danko reluctantly shares details of his life and career with Ridzik, revealing a morbid background that has hardened him into an instrument of uncompromising justice, yet even he shows sympathy towards deluded fitness trainer Catherine “Cat” Manzetti (Gina Gershon), just one of many women Rostavili has wooed into marrying him and acting as a patsy for his operations out of misguided devotion.

Rostavili (who has taken the clever alias Viktor Rosta) is depicted as a reprehensible and callous criminal, one who is seen as a poison to the great Soviet Union because he floods Moscow with drugs and threatens to upset the strict, carefully maintained balance of law and order. A snarling, embittered Georgian man who feels slighted by prejudice towards his people, Rosta has nothing but disgust for authority, especially the Moscow Militsiya, and delights in defying them both explicitly and in the peddling of cocaine. Rosta flees to Chicago after being outed in Moscow and immediately sets himself up as the newest crime boss in town; alongside his fellow Georgians, he establishes an intricate network of underworld contacts and associates and a simple system of communication using go-fers, telephone booths, and torn bills to peddle his wares with the aim of smuggling $5 million worth of cocaine into Moscow using local gangs and even a shame marriage, one he ends in brutal fashion after Cat tries to escape his clutches, revealing himself to be as calculating as he is cruel. Unfortunately, a disruption in his operation causes him to get a little sloppy and be arrested for speeding, alerting Moscow to his presence and causing Danko to pursue him with a vengeance. Although Rosta escapes custody, he loses the key to his drug stash in the process, and this naturally becomes his primary goal; he lures Danko into an ambush and attempts to first appeal to his patriotism and then bribe him into handing it over, to no avail, much to Rosta’s disgust. Rosta then has his assassin, Josip Baroda (Tengiz Borisoff), impersonate a nurse to murder his own man (Roger Callard) before he can talk, before using his gang buddies as bait to distract Danko so he can retrieve his key and callously murdering Cat, bringing major heat on both Danko and Ridzik.

The Nitty-Gritty:
As was often the case around this time, the depiction of the Soviet Union and Russians is greatly exaggerated for comedic effect. Well, I say that but for all I know Russians really were massive, surly, patriotic robots during this time, but just going by the bombastic soundtrack and the in-your-face presentation of Moscow and Russian culture as this uncompromising and ruthless society makes me assume that these elements were enhanced to paint them comedic opposites to the more laidback and carefree United States. This forms much of the film’s comedy; Danko’s peers and superiors mock America’s theatricality, Danko (regal in his pressed uniform) stands out like a sore thumb on the streets of Chicago, and then there’s the obvious contentious relationship between him and Ridzik. Given the genre of the film, it’s tempting to make parallels to Lethal Weapon, but they don’t really have much relevance here beyond some superficial similarities; for all his talk of “Miranda Rights” and due process, Ridzik isn’t exactly a by-the-book cop so seeing him chew Danko out for his more extreme and blunt methods is oddly hypocritical considering he openly plants incriminating evidence on “Streak” (Brion James). Some of the best moments in Red Heat are born from Danko’s inability to understand American slang and humour and his commentary on the decadent West compared to the more efficient (and brutal) nature of the Soviet Union when it comes to punishing criminals and dealing with politicians and drugs alike. With Schwarzenegger being at his physical peak, Danko’s punches land with comic book-style power and he’s shown to be extremely formidable. Even he isn’t impervious to damage, however, as seen when Rosta’s attack leaves him with a nasty concussion, but naturally he’s up and about before too long.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a buddy cop movie without some shoot-outs: Danko gets into violent gunfight at the beginning (somehow avoiding being shot despite being such a big target in a small space), but Ridzik’s bust of Salim’s (J.W. Smith) apartment is noticeably more frantic and involves a lot more guns and chaotic shouting. Danko also impresses with his massive Soviet cannon and .44 Magnum, gunning down Rosta’s goons in glorious ‘80’s fashion, complete with blood squibs and crashing glass. Uniquely, Red Heat concludes with a bus chase through the busy Chicago streets; this comes after Ridzik’s sleazy brother-in-law, Pat Nunn (Michael Hagerty), inadvertently solves the mystery of the locker key, which sees Ridzik and Danko confront Rosta at the bus station. Unfortunately, a conflict of opinion regarding which one of them gets to take him in allows Rosta to flee in a stolen bus, so the two commandeer one of their own to pursue him. This results in a surprisingly frantic chase considering the size and unwieldy nature of the buses and sees them careening through traffic and landmarks alike, all while Ridzik loudly curses in frustration. Ultimately, Danko and Rosta drive at each other, each one determined to see the other dead regardless of their own life. Luckily for Danko, Ridzik is on hand to force a last-second swerve, resulting in minor injuries for them and a final, blood-soaked showdown between Danko and Rosta that sees the despicable drug pusher gunned down. Despite their differences, Ridzik and Danko part as friends; they even exchange wrist watches in the time-honoured tradition of the Soviets (though Ridzik gets amusingly shafted on the exchange) and agree that, while their countries may have their differences, they’re “police officers, not politicians”.

The Summary:
Although I grew up watching Arnold Schwarzenegger films and I was (and still am) a massive fan of his, Red Heat is one of his movies I’m not as familiar with. I didn’t see it until I was much older, so I don’t have the same nostalgia for it as I do his other films. While this doesn’t mean I’m any less entertained by it, I can’t say I often choose to watch it over his other films or other, more enjoyable buddy cop flicks. Schwarzenegger is great in this role; it plays into the strengths that made him so memorable in The Terminator while also allowing him to showcase a different range of emotions, such as a subdued sense of duty and an implacable determination to get his man. I also really enjoyed Belushi here as the wise-ass jerk of the two, and I think they had real chemistry together, but I feel like the film never lives up to the potential this pairing has. It’s weird seeing Ridzik be such a smart-ass to everyone and yet lecture Danko on proper procedures even when he’s (as in Ridzik) brazenly breaking the rules; their relationship is made wildly inconsistent because of this and I think it would’ve been better if Ridzik had been the hot-headed loose cannon and Danko had been the by-the-books military man, with the two then learning from and understanding each other’s perspective across the film. Instead, while it seems to lean that way, Ridzik wildly jumps from doing things right, to defying his orders or openly insulting his superiors, and between criticising and admiring Danko from scene to scene, needlessly complicating their pursuit of Rosta. The action and gunplay was decent, and the film’s definitely leaning more into the cop drama aspects of Lethal Weapon rather than the comedy/action of its sequels, but I don’t think it really out-does Lethal Weapon in this regard. Its main unique aspect is the dichotomy between the US and Russia, with the US being mocked and criticised for its debauchery and Russia for being so uptight. It’s amusing, and I liked the clash of styles and methods, but it loses a lot of impact due to the aforementioned inconsistent tone and kind of feels like it was just an excuse to poke fun at the militant Russians. Ultimately, it’s a decent enough movie but there are better Schwarzenegger and buddy cop movies out there; it’s a quick watch (maybe too quick at times, resulting in a serious lack of screen time for Rosta) with some potential, but I can’t rate it much higher (despite the chemistry between the two leads) since it squanders a lot of that potential.

My Rating:

Pretty Good

What do you think to Red Heat? How do you think the film holds up against other buddy cop movies and where would you rank it against Arnold’s other films? What did you think to Schwarzenegger’s portrayal of the stoic Danko and his banter with Ridzik? Do you feel the film had the right balance of action and comedy or were you also left a bit deflated by it? What did you think to Rosta and commentary on US and Russian society? Do you have any memories of the Cold War? How are you celebrating Schwarzenegger’s birthday today and what is your favourite Schwarzenegger film? Whatever you think, go ahead and leave your thoughts below or drop a comment on my social media.