Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
A tough Russian policeman is forced to partner up with a cocky Chicago police detective when he is sent to Chicago to apprehend a Georgian drug lord who killed his partner and fled the country.
Red Heat is a solid but unremarkable buddy-cop actioner that coasts on the Cold War novelty of pairing Arnold Schwarzenegger's stoic Soviet cop with James Belushi's wisecracking Chicagoan. The plot is formulaic — a straightforward manhunt with little surprise — and the ending resolves predictably. Schwarzenegger and Belushi have genuine chemistry, lifting the acting above the material, and Walter Hill's direction gives the film a competent, punchy visual style. Its novelty lies in the East-West cultural clash dynamic, which was genuinely fresh for 1988, though not executed with enough distinctiveness to stand out as truly singular.