RED HEAT (1988) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

RED HEAT (1988) movie

Genre              |   Action Thriller

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |   104 minutes

Released         |   17 June 1988

cast

Arnold Schwarzenegger ... Ivan Danko
Jim Belushi ... Art Ridzik (as James Belushi)
Peter Boyle ... Lou Donnelly
Ed O'Ross ... Viktor Rostavili
Laurence Fishburne ... Lt. Stobbs (as Larry Fishburne)
Gina Gershon ... Cat Manzetti
Pruitt Taylor Vince ... Night Clerk
Brion James ... Streak
​Sven-Ole Thorsen ... N

director

Walter Hill

writer

​Walter Hill ... (story)
 
Harry Kleiner ... (screenplay) &
Walter Hill ... (screenplay) and
Troy Kennedy-Martin ... (screenplay) (as Troy Kennedy Martin)

cinematographer

​Matthew F. Leonetti ... director of photography

music

James Horner

film editor

Donn Aron
Carmel Davies
Freeman A. Davies ... (as Freeman Davies)

---

box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​​ ​​34,994,648

Australia                 $​​​​​​ not available

North America       $​​​​​​​​34,994,648

---

movie minutiae

​Walter Hill deliberately chose to tone down the Arnold Schwarzenegger persona, making him more realistic and less prone to wisecracks: "I had confidence in him as an actor. I didn't want him just to throw a Volkswagen over a building. Arnold has an ability to communicate that cuts through cultures and countries. They just love to see this guy win. But everyone thinks it's his muscles. It's not that at all: it's his face, his eyes. He has a face that's a throwback to a warrior from the Middle Ages, or ancient Greece".​

RED HEAT was partially re-cut to be shorter movie. Amongst the scenes which were deleted there was an entire part of the plot cut which included Viktor's wife Cat trying to help Art and other cops to set up a trap for Viktor in a park during the baseball game while he is on some deal, but it turns out that Viktor was lying to Cat and cops are left empty handed. Removal of these scenes and some others is reason why right after the hotel shootout between Danko and Cleanheads last act of the movie seems too fast paced and not really that well explained. Novelization of the movie however includes all deleted scenes.

​Many stills and pictures show deleted scene in which Danko is running out of the Garvin hotel after shootout with Cleanheads and after Viktor jumps into the river. Removal of this extended chase scene is reason why there is a strange jump cut in the movie where scene cuts to the aftermath of the shootout with police investigating the hotel without explaining what happened to Viktor and why didn't Danko go after him.

---

related movies

RAW DEAL (1986)

RED HEAT (1988) MOVIE IMAGES

Images

Posters

Images

Posters

RED HEAT (1988) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Arnold Schwarzenegger is Captain Ivan Danko, a highly disciplined Russian detective. James Belushi is Detective Art Ridzik, a fearless but undisciplined Chicago cop. They're a pair of mismatched cops hot on the trail of Russia's deadliest drug smuggler throughout the mean streets of Chicago. A nonstop action-adventure, packed with humor and thrills...with this much friction, there's gotta be heat....RED HEAT.

RED HEAT (1988) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 17 June 2016

​​Pop Movee Rating

RED HEAT was - arguably - the film that proved even Arnold Schwarzenegger's presence was not enough to save a poorly conceived story. The film fails to capitalise on the unique opportunity it was provided to film in Moscow (albeit in the emerging spirit of Glasnost promoted by Mikael Gorbachev) and never really finds its rhythm once the action moves to Chicago. There's also some real problems with the relationship between Schwarzeneger's Ivan Danko and Jim Belushi's Art Ridzik, a Chicago Police Detective who is perennially one moment away from being fired. Their chemistry never quite gels in the manner the film’s producer must have hoped for when the two actors were first mooted for their respective roles.

Directed by hard-core action Director Walter Hill, RED HEAT opens with its best scene. In Russian foundry cum sauna complex, Schwarzenegger's Danko gets to show off his body-builder physique as he interrogates would-be criminals in nothing but a loin cloth. Identifying a suspect (played by frequent Schwarzenegger movie supporting player Sven-Ole Thorsen) who is a known associate of Viktor Rosta (Ed O’Ross), the criminal Danko is searching for, the man mountain of a policeman goes mano-a-mano to get his information. Smashing through a plate glass window, the pair end up in the snow outside. In some of the most overdone "punching" sound effects ever heard in a film, the fist fight in the snow ends up with Danko getting the information he needs. The opening sequence really tells you all you need to know about RED HEAT and if you’re not turned off by it, then the next 100 minutes will be time well spent.

Soon after pounding the truth out poor old Sven-Ole’s henchman, Danko and his fellow Moscow militia surround a cafe where they have been told they will find Rosta. Surprisingly, for a film that is appealing to the lowest common denominator, the first scene between Danko and Rosta is quite politically charged, as the criminal complains that the authorities are persecuting him because of his agrarian Georgian heritage. It doesn't take long for the film to get back on track, as Danko plays a great party trick; snapping off one of Rosta's associates legs to find that is an artificial prosthetic filled with cocaine. A gun battle ensued and Danko's partner Oleg (Yuri Ogarkov) is gunned down by Rosta, who subsequently flees the country and somehow finds his way to Chicago. In order to redeem himself in the eyes of his superiors and avenge his colleague, Danko heads off in pursuit of Rosta. His commander tells him to be discreet, but given this is an Arnold Schwarzenegger action film, it's a pretty hollow request!

The film improves for a period as the actions moves to Chicago. Viewers may struggle with Jim Belushi’s Ridzik, but his Chicago PD colleagues Gallagher (Richard Bright), Stobbs (Laurence Fishburne) and Chief Donnelly (Peter Boyle) add some real punch to the middle part of the story. Unfortunately, their scenes are limited and Director Hill allows Belushi too much latitude in his performance and the viewer feels like they are witness to a foul-mouthed stand-up routine, rather than genuine acting. To make matters worse, Schwarzenegger turns in a subdued performance (in keeping with his character), but it only serves to highlight the extremes between his and Belushi’s approach to their respective characters. At this point in his career, Schwarzenegger didn’t have the timing or acting skill to match Belushi’s manic antics and the film suffers as a result. Belushi’s not the only one whose performance misses the mark; Gina Gershon  as Cat Manzetti, Rosta’s American wife, never quite progresses beyond being a one-dimensional “damsel-in-distress” and spends most of her scenes demonstrating a varying range of “hysterical” (depending on the circumstances).

The final Act of RED HEAT never quite comes together and Hill mines his own body of work to try and make something out of the script. There’s more than just a fleeting nod to Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte’s 48 HOURS in RED HEAT’s finale, as Dank takes down Viktor Rosta in a not dissimilar fashion to the manner in which Nick Nolte’s Jack Cates takes down James Remar’s Albert Ganz in the 1982 film. The finale exemplifies the problems that exist plague RED HEAT. Despite the “clash of cultures” premise, there’s nothing original to be found in the story. The film depends on the presence of Schwarzenegger to make it work, but not even the Austrian Oak can lift the material (of his co-star’s performance) to a level that delivers a satisfactory action thriller. (It pains me to say this, because as a teenager, I loved RED HEAT. At the time, it seemed to exhibit a tone and visual aesthetic that I thought was really cool. I guess twenty-eight years and thousands of movies later it’s fair to reassess my opinion of it, but it doesn’t make the hurt any less… Sorry Arnold.)

RED HEAT (1988) USEFUL LINKS

​Red Heat (1988 film) - Wikipedia
​Red Heat (1988) - IMDb
​​Red Heat (1988) - Rotten Tomatoes

digital updates delivered

facebook

instagram