Red Heat

One of the 80s quieter action classics, Red Heat (1988) has the powerful combination of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Belushi's more talented brother James, and a Cold War buddy action/adventure sorta comedy. It's such a perfect blending of everything good I don't believe anyone has been able to watch this and not found something to enjoy.

In the first couple of minutes of the film you get a bath house scene filled with naked women, grunting body builders (which kinda gives the impression those naked women were an after-thought...) and the introduction to Schwarzenegger's character Iron Jaw, who is only wearing a G-string loin cloth and enough body oil to drown a lesser man. And three muscle men fighting nearly naked in the snow. And that's even before the credits begin to role!

The plot is simple enough. Taciturn tough as nails Soviet cop, Schwarzenegger, chases a Russian drug lord to America and gets teamed with loud mouth sloppy Chicago cop, Belushi. Hi-jinxs, bullets, explosions and international détente ensue.

The action scenes are competently done, but do suffer from the 'rule of three'. If a guy gets killed with a one-shot derringer pistol, he still gets shot three times. If someone gets hit with a truncheon or fist, three times. But it's an 80s film, so that means plenty of blood and tittie shots popping up gratuitously

The film makes a fist of social commentary, here and there. Schwarzenegger dismissal of porn with a snarled “capitalism”. The monologue about the oppression of the black male in the United States, given weight by being delivered by a black bank robber and drug dealer. Or Schwarzenegger's insistence that having a parakeet as a pet doesn't make him feminine (the parakeet is the least of the concerns on that matter!).

With the stranger in a strange land element we get to experience kooky 80s fads along with Schwarzenegger. Like computer chess, relaxation tapes, aerobic jazzacise, Satin crumpled suits, and green screen computers.

Highlights: naked snow wrestling. Twist a wooden leg off a cripple action. Young Laurence (Larry) Fishburn. The guy that plays the dad on Everyone Loves Raymond as the weary, seen it all before police captain. Killer transvestite nurse. All black, all bald murder gang. Playing chicken with buses.