Review by Dragan Antulov
2 stars out of 4
Few years before the collapse of Berlin Wall, words like
"glasnost" and "perestroika" went into fashion, replacing
the old Cold War rhetoric. Gorbachov's irresistible charm,
mistaken by many as a proof of statesman's abilities, was
responsible for Soviets not being considered as threat any
more. Hollywood also fell in line, and its movies broke the
ideological taboos of the early Reagan years by portraying
the Evil Empire as something that the West at least can
learn to live by. One of those films is RED HEAT, police
thriller by veteran action director Walter Hill, made in
1988. An year later the collapse of the Wall and fall of the
Communist governments in Europe would make such movies
obsolete; in few years Hollywood screenwriters would again
start turning Russians into obligatory Commie villains.
The movie protagonist and the main good guy is, ironically,
one of such big bad Commies, Captain Ivan Danko (Arnold
Schwarzenegger) of the Moscow Militia. He is huge, muscular,
deadly and extremely dedicated to his job of protecting the
people and the state from anti-social elements. One of such
elements is a Georgian criminal Viktor Rostaveli (Ed
O'Ross), who uses the new openness in Moscow to supply the
city youth with cocaine smuggled from the West. Danko tries
to arrest Rostaveli, but he escapes, killing Danko's partner
in the process. Few months later, word comes that the
Chicago Police arrested Rostaveli on a petty charge. Danko
is sent to America in order to bring him home and meets
wisecracking Chicago Detective Sergeant Art Ridzik (James
Belushi). The routine extradition, however, turns into
bloody mess and Rostaveli escapes again, this time killing
Ridzik's partner. Two policemen must now overcome their
mutual distrust and cultural and ideological differences in
order to bring the criminal to justice.
Apart from its, at the time logical, "high concept" idea,
RED HEAT doesn't offer anything especially new or original
in the action movie genre. Walter Hill probably lost his
inspiration at that time, and apart from few changes, the
movie's plot is very much like his earlier and much more
celebrated work 48 HRS - combination of "buddy buddy" and
"outsider must prove himself" motives of numerous cop movies
in last few decades. Unfortunately, the screenplay by Walter
Hill, Harry Kleiner and Troy Kennedy Martin doesn't live to
its expectations; "buddy buddy" dynamic is destroyed by
turning the two main leads into one-dimensional stereotypes.
The actors are also not very inspired, and the contrast
between the fanatical, silent and almost robotic
Schwarzenegger (who, on the other hand, learned all of his
Russian lines in order to make his character authentic) and
wisecracking and impulsive Belushi seems over-emphasised.
Action scenes are superbly directed, although some of them,
like the last chase between two buses, looks a little bit
deja vu. Quantity and quality of humour, necessary for this
type of movies, is also bellow the expectations, although
Hill uses this story to tell us one ironic, yet disturbing
truth. Throughout the film, Captain Danko uses every
opportunity to point the efficiency of Soviet police that
provides public security without ever having to bother with
such petty concepts like civil liberties and legal
procedure. After a while, Ridzik also concurs with such
basically totalitarian ideas, probably seeing the great
similarity with the concepts practically advocated in movies
about Dirty Harry and Paul Kersey.
Copyright © 1998 Dragan Antulov
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