Red Heat

For the month of August, I’m going to review some famous buddy cop movies. Let’s start off with the 1988 comedy, “Red Heat.”

This is not the first movie about a couple of completely different cops, and it will not be the last, but as we know what this is, this is a superior example. Roger Ebert said in his review, “It's an action picture with a sense of humor and slyly comic performances by Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi, and after the awful police teamwork of Sean Connery and Mark Harmon in last week's “The Presidio,” it's an example of slick professionalism.”

Ebert continued, “Hollywood calls movies like this “high concept” pictures, because you can summarize the plot in a few words, and the words could go like this: Schwarzenegger plays a tough Russian cop who follows a criminal to Chicago and teams up with Belushi as a Chicago slob who knows more about clout than glasnost. Take that line and you have the movie.” All you have to do is put in a story and some gunfights and chase scenes.

Walter Hill directed and co-wrote the film, and he is skilled at doing these films. His specialty is male buddy and action films, and he somewhat reinvented the genre when he casted Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in “48 Hours.” One of the nice things about “Red Heat” is that it doesn’t copy Hill’s previous film (except for the basic concept) and finds new things to say about a strange paring of law enforcement.

Schwarzenegger plays Captain Ivan Danko, a straightforward Russian cop, all business, ripped and tough. Belushi plays Sergeant Art Ridzik, the type of cop who doesn’t believe in working hard every day and is capable of teaching his Russian partner to lighten up. He is partnered with Danko as somewhat of a guide and bodyguard, and together they come across the usual group of eccentrics and conspiracies.

What actually happens in the film is very unimportant in movies like this. Style is everything, and if there is a bond between the two actors then everything else will come naturally. “Red Heat” works because Schwarzenegger and Belushi are both pretty much comic actors.

Ebert pointed out, “Schwarzenegger's whole career is based on his ability to see the humor in apparently hard-boiled situations. That doesn't mean the actors stand around cracking one-liners, but that even the straight sequences are setups for later payoffs, and you get the quiet feeling that both actors are amused by the material.”

Ebert continued, “The premise is that Schwarzenegger, nicknamed Iron Jaw, would rather die than bend, and that Belushi would rather bend than die.”

Faced with the industrialist extras of Chicago, Danko has some conventional Russian criticisms, and Ridzik responds with dialogue that often sounds improvised, even if it’s not. The two of them both have to calm the strict chief of detectives, played by Peter Boyle, who issues serious warnings when they violate departmental procedure. At one-point Ridzik is taken off the case, although that, obviously, doesn’t change any of his behavior. Boyle’s role is the hateful one in the film. Ebert noted, “The stern chief is the oldest cliche in cop movies, with his obligatory lectures on protocol to touch cops who shift back and forth on their feet like guilty schoolboys.”

The film is filled with violence, which is a large amount, although most of it is exaggerated comic-book type instead of being really violent. Ebert ended his review by saying, “Walking that fine line is a speciality of Hill, who once simulated the sound of a fist on a chin by making tape recordings of Ping-Pong paddles slapping leather sofas.”

To hear Schwarzenegger, do a Russian accent, which isn’t all that good because you can still hear his actual accent, it’s still pretty funny. This is a really funny movie that I think people should check out. If you haven’t seen it, and you love watching Schwarzenegger movies, like myself, I would say check it out, especially if you’re a Belushi fan.

Look out next week for the next installment of “Buddy Cop Month.”