Chaplin
Better off silent
No-Brainer action at its best:
Amazon.com
After scoring a hit with the Eddie Murphy-Nick Nolte cop thriller 48 Hours, director Walter Hill returned to the buddy formula with this half-ridiculous, half-invigorating action flick about humorless Russian cop Ivan Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger). He follows a drug dealer from Moscow to Chicago, where he's matched up with city cop Art Ridzik (James Belushi), whose work ethic is considerably more relaxed. Most of the humor revolves around Danko's grumpy reaction to good ol' American capitalism, while Ridzik urges him to chill out. Red Heat is not bad as action comedies go, but only if you get into the absurd spirit of this predictable fare, in which the unlikely buddies get to wisecrack and act casually while mayhem erupts everywhere they go. Incidentally, Red Heat was the first American film allowed to shoot in Moscow's Red Square. --Jeff Shannon
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A dead genre about a dead cold war, the buddy flick was a staple throughout the 80s. Here you had the biggest action star of his time coupled with a comedian trying to break free from his brother's huge shadow, and for the most part, director Walter Hill succeeded. If you like people getting shot, beat up and generally just plowed through by a rarely-speaking Schwarzenegger and a wise-cracking Belushi, then this movie is for you. Cliched, yes. Contrived, absolutely. But really a lot of fun, especially when you try to figure out what their foley department was doing when they decided how to make punches sound.
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Amazon.com
After scoring a hit with the Eddie Murphy-Nick Nolte cop thriller 48 Hours, director Walter Hill returned to the buddy formula with this half-ridiculous, half-invigorating action flick about humorless Russian cop Ivan Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger). He follows a drug dealer from Moscow to Chicago, where he's matched up with city cop Art Ridzik (James Belushi), whose work ethic is considerably more relaxed. Most of the humor revolves around Danko's grumpy reaction to good ol' American capitalism, while Ridzik urges him to chill out. Red Heat is not bad as action comedies go, but only if you get into the absurd spirit of this predictable fare, in which the unlikely buddies get to wisecrack and act casually while mayhem erupts everywhere they go. Incidentally, Red Heat was the first American film allowed to shoot in Moscow's Red Square. --Jeff Shannon
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A dead genre about a dead cold war, the buddy flick was a staple throughout the 80s. Here you had the biggest action star of his time coupled with a comedian trying to break free from his brother's huge shadow, and for the most part, director Walter Hill succeeded. If you like people getting shot, beat up and generally just plowed through by a rarely-speaking Schwarzenegger and a wise-cracking Belushi, then this movie is for you. Cliched, yes. Contrived, absolutely. But really a lot of fun, especially when you try to figure out what their foley department was doing when they decided how to make punches sound.
