Arnold Schwartzenegger in the role of humorless, ultra-disciplined Soviet police-captain Vanya Danko, teamed with Chicago PD screw-up Art Ritsek (Jim Belushi), to track a Georgean drug kingpin... this is one of Arnold's greatest, but least-appreciated, action-films. The best scenes take place in Russia, in the banya (public bath), over the rooftops around Red Square, in the mafiya cafe. Arnold's Russian, spoken with his Austrian accent, is pretty terrific! What impressed me was the film's close attention to detail: Even Danko's handwriting and numbers were authentically Russian-style. The machismo of the personal battle between Ivan Danko and the smuggler was intensely Russian, as was Danko's unswerving conviction of Soviet superiority. His terse correction of the hotel clerk's question "Is [Viktor] another Russian, like you?" Danko: "Soviet.", is right-on -Georgeans are not Russians, although many Americans don't know that. The scripting of a Georgean as the loathesome criminal is actually quite revealing, and surely a reflection of the film's "official" Russian input . Despite the grimness of the plot and Arnold's character, there is plenty of dark humor, mainly provided by Belushi's portrayal of undisciplined officer Ritsek. The humor frequently contrasts the strictly indoctrinated Soviet structure with the (to Danko) near-anarchy of American freedom. Much of the mayhem and carnage wrought during the process of Danko's personal war defies credibility; as Ritsek puts it: "Why aren't there any cops around when you need one!" The action genre's obligatory high-speed chase scene was ludicrous, yet appropriately Russian (everything Russian always seems so much "bigger"...). And the protagonists' exchange in the end, in which Vanya gets the better deal, is also typically Russian -and proves that Danko is not so humorless after all. By the way, this movie (like all of Arnold's action-films) is extremely popular here, where it has been dubbed into the Russian language. Ironically, in the russkiy version, all the obscenities have been deleted from the dialogue.
On the downside of the film the beggining is all Russian. You'll be forced to read English subtitles not able to enjoy any of the visuals, until around ten to twenty minutes into the film. Unless of course you speak Russian.
The final word. If you're looking for something to do on a boring afternoon, I recommend sitting back and enjoying Red Heat.
Read Best Reviews of Red Heat (1988) Here
Cannot beat this deal for a fun 1980s film in BD that actually came across as good as can be without Lionsgate dumping too much money into it.The clarity gave a decent showing even with the amount of skin tones being shown by our fearless leader in that beginning Russian spa scene. The color was vivid, maybe too much so once they hit the snow with the flesh tones and fake injuries contrasting against the white. But the credit (pink colors) looked clear with no grain at all, and admittedly that DNR thingy (or whatever they call the removal process for some of these upgrades) did not blur/fuzz things at all. The Chicago street scenes looked good and the background signs are actually readable now. The DTS is mostly channeled to the front three, but they managed to add some decent bass here and there.
The supplements are from the 2004 edition in low def, but it is always nice to see that stunt man memorial featurette, recommend that if you pick only one to watch. The included TV spots and such are always nice for a before and after comparison on quality. For what they put into this, and the price being offered I feel you won't be disappointed.
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The film was funny just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but I must say it has become hilarious today after the fall. It is not even a real caricature because there is a nostalgic dimension to it. Nostalgic about a time when things were simple in the world where there was us and there was them. We were necessarily on the right side by identifying with the side we were geographically on. And the rest was only politics.But with the distance, there is no us and no them, there is only one global mess and we all have to live in it, parakeet or not, East-German watch or not, Georgian mafia against Chicagoan mafia. And now this mafia or these mafias have turned into terrorist armies. All over the world the game because it is a game, a killing game is no longer Miranda versus totalitarianism. It is kill them first versus totalitarianism.
These mafiosi are choir boys when compared with the Ben Laden and the Prabhakaran of today, and note I took two dead examples for whom there were no Miranda rights. These people are responsible for thousands of people killed, hundreds of thousands of people mutilated by mines or other assault weapons. They have no rights any more. They lost them when they decided to enter a war against humanity, a war of pure violence and crime.
The film is showing that so well including with allusions to Dirty Harry or Dr Zhivago. These people do not sell drugs to make money but they are selling drugs to break the law, make money and kill anyone they can come across on their way. They kill for the pleasure of killing. When the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet system came down, and we were liberated of the good terrorists who were fighting for the liberation of humanity. For those people who admired such "patriotic" heroes people like Gaddafi or Prabhakaran were revolutionaries. All that has changed and they have become what they were all the time, nasty terrorists.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, little by little all the self-calling "revolutionary" movements in the world have had to change identity and enter the political arena with only political weapons and drop the other weapons in some kind of ditch forever. The guerilla movements in Angola and Mozambique were forced to drop their weapons, the IRA was forced to move towards a political solution, the various diamonds wars in Africa were also forced to drop their weapons and their diamonds had to go back on the market without any blood stain, the Sandinistas were obliged to concede a defeat before then regaining power in elections.
We could multiply examples. The Basque ETA is a die-hard movement like the Corsican independence movement. The LTTE was in Sri Lanka the first major victory against that terrorism and since then many things have changed in the Arab world and as for Al Qaida. That's why this film has become so funny with years.
Some could have said it was a Cold War comic film at the end of those events. But now it is the most hilarious film on the subject of the end of a revolutionary vision that was not really revolutionary but just violent. But today it is the Soviet of the old days who are right: criminals may have Miranda rights, but that is only if they survive their arrest. If they don't they have no other right than to shut up. That's why these criminals are not supposed to survive their arrest. Just make sure they have the fair chance to shoot or try to shoot first and that they are the real big ones, not some manipulated non-entities.
In 1988 the film was advocating Dirty Harry's methods. Today it justifies the use of such methods: these scumbags have to be brought home, but in a corpse bag if possible. The bullets are already too much of an expense to bring them back home, so let's avoid the trial that would ensue if they were still able to speak or at least move one single toe. Something changed in 1989, even if the Bushes Sr. and Jr. did not understand it properly. I can imagine the mess the Bushes would have done in Libya sending the Cavalry for sure.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
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