RED HEAT FUCKING RULES. I MEAN, RED HEAT REALLY, REALLY FUCKING RULES.
There we go. That wasn't so hard, was it? And yes, as a central principle, that's both kind of “well, duh, dipshit, how many days did it take me to finish reading your Tony Scott post? I kind of figured that one beforehand” and “wait, that's not a unifying aesthetic principle, fuckface, why the hell are you trolling me on a gorgeous spring day?” I believe in opaque statements where a phrase carries several different meanings and requires multiple interpretations to properly unpack. So, what appears to be a reductive, sophomoric sentiment with gratuitous f-bombs about one particular movie is, in fact a statement about cinema in general, semiotically aggressively unpretentious, and expressed with an enthusiasm that permeates not only my view of cinema but of life. BOOOM, motherfucker, you do not want a piece of this intellect.
So, anyway. Red Heat is a landmark of several different careers.
For Arnold, following directly on the heels of Predator, and not long after his Terminator days, which immediately followed his Conan days, Red Heat marked one of his first forays into playing a quasi-real guy. What raises Red Heat above the level of Raw Deal and Commando is, in large part, to the grittiness and, while not exactly realism, the realism-esque directorial style of Walter Hill, who also co-scripted.
Walter Hill's career has been interesting, if maddeningly inconsistent—there's awesomeness like The Warriors, 48 Hrs, and The Driver on one hand, bizarre shit like Streets of Fire and Johnny Handsome on the other, and pictures like Brewster's Millions and Supernova on my dick. Amazingly, Red Heat hits the triple crown, managing to exist in all three categories at once, the only time Walter Hill ever achieved this kind of synergy. The only—apparent—debit Red Heat has against it is the presence of this guy:
Jim Belushi has the misfortune of being the younger brother of one of the great geniuses in the history of the performing arts. When he was on—and he was on a shockingly high percentage of the time—there was no one funnier than John Belushi. You could be as funny as him (if your name was/is Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, or Tommy Wiseau) but never surpass. Jim, sadly, will never be able to escape that, but he hasn't helped matters by crafting a career consisting 99.9% of the worst fucking shit ever. The .1 % is, of course, Red Heat. Jim Belushi is actually really goddamn good in this movie, which I attribute to Arnold, who pulls off this kind of alchemy with co-stars often enough that we really need to start giving Arnold more thespian credit (Tom Arnold in True Lies actually seemed like a mammal, for example).
Last but not least, mention must be made of the great unheralded goddess of the cinema, the Semitic Siren, the olive-skinned Aphrodite of B-cinema, the one and only:
If I ever met Gina Gershon, I'd probably blush, not be able to make eye contact, and then meekly ask her if we could hold hands. Maybe see if she wanted to get ice cream. The first thing I remember ever seeing her in was Red Heat, and she made such an impression that I paid very close attention to the credits at the end—I needed to know who that woman was. My fucking God she was gorgeous back then. She still is, too, but she evolved from that kind of coltish, deep-voiced tomboy type into a much more mature vintage, in every sense of the word.
*daydreams about Gina Gershon for about an hour*
Ahem. Anyway. Red Heat. Red Heat was the first western movie to get permission to shoot in Red Square, which was kind of a big deal, and provoked a lot of tut tutting from the kind of people who tut tut at things (“Why couldn't it have been a more politically significant film?” etc.) It reflects a particular sentiment in the American consciousness; worn down as we were by 40+ years of the Cold War, a lot of people were like, “Ya know, the Russians are probably guys just like you and me. Fuck governments, people are people.” Unlike movies from the earlier, pre-Gorbachev era (like 2010), which projected their spirit of togetherness in the sense of a bunch of sensitive progressives sitting around a cocktail party sipping wine and talking yearningly of a day when all could get along, Red Heat is sitting next to you in the bar at 4am, invading your personal space a little, telling you things it shouldn't, but ultimately not saying anything you disagree with (of course, you're drunk and tired, and the goddamn bartender keeps buying you every third drink so you can barely see, but that's another matter).
Of course, talking about the political relevance of Red Heat is going to get you some funny looks, because Red Heat is a proudly disreputable buddy cop movie. The high concept, of course: a foul-mouthed, retrogressive American cop is, through contrived circumstances, partnered with an inscrutable, mysterious Russian cop.
We start by jumping headfirst into awesome—a Russian bath house, with lots of well-built people walking around naked and nearly naked, lifting weights, swimming around. After a couple establishing shots, in walks Arnold, the most well-built of all. He heads over to a sinister-looking Tartar, who looks at his hands and makes a growled observation in stilted Russian about Arnold's hands being soft, so his buddies drop a glowing-hot rock into Arnold's hand. Of course it takes more than that to faze Arnold, so he takes the fist with the rock and punches the Tartar, and he beats the shit out of a few guys (note, courtesy of noted Walter Hill scholar Bryan Enk: the punch sound effects were made by Walter Hill smashing a gigantic bag of ice with a two-by-four. This, of course, makes the punches in this movie sound fucking AWESOME), crashing through the wall into the snow. So a bunch of nearly-naked dudes try to kick Arnold's ass in the snow, but Arnold (also nearly-naked) stomps em all before grabbing the last one and asking the whereabouts of one Viktor Rosta. The guy gives up the location and Arnold knocks his ass the fuck out. Roll credits.
The titles contain a lot of dumb fake Russian letters. My dad, who spoke not half-bad Russian, took particular delight in telling me how backwards r's would change the pronunciation of people's names. Arnold's was pretty funny, I recall; it sounded like a French cabbie having a seizure while choking on a baguette. There are a lot of cool shots of Red Square (this, and the closing titles, being the only place where the Red Square footage was used, the rest of the Russia stuff was shot in Budapest, which you can kind of tell but not really) and some good Russian choral music, something that makes the titles of Red Heat awesome in the same way The Hunt For Red October's were (even though The Hunt For Red October is a better movie, but you shut the fuck up about that, you).
So Arnold and his partner banter in Russian, and we get to hear Arnold's Austrian accent be just as thick in Russian as it is in English (man I love his accent . . . he's like fucking Henry Kissinger, he could be undead for five hundred years and still sound like Peter Lorre on HGH). Once they've finished bantering—and exchanging some worldly and cynical views about the West—they roll into the cafe where Viktor Rosta is waiting.
This cafe is the coolest place ever. It's kind of like if Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Raymond Chandler went on a bender together and got so fucked up they rewrote the Mos Eisley scene in Star Wars. Words cannot do this scene justice, so take a couple minutes and watch it.
From there, Arnold chases Viktor Rosta through the streets of “Moscow” and kills Viktor Rosta's brother (the guy who's all like, “What's this country coming to? This is just like the old days!”) but Viktor Rosta kills Arnold's partner; as Bogart said, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship. At Arnold's partner's funeral, another cop tells him Viktor Rosta's nowhere to be found, headed for the States.
Chicago is introduced with a lot of loud fusion jazz-rock (per the 48 Hrs score), and a cryptic scene with Viktor Rosta tearing a hundred-dollar bill in half and giving the other half to a smooth-talking black guy who's kind of a shitty actor. Said smooth talker is then pursued by Jim Belushi, Laurence Fishburne back when he was still Larry (who looks so much like Malcolm X in this movie I was kind of bummed when Spike Lee cast Denzel until I saw how fucking awesome Denzel was despite looking nothing like him), and Neri from The Godfather.
Jim Belushi quickly establishes himself as politically incorrect, immature, and pretty funny. Larry Fishburne gives him a hard time. The smooth talking black guy, it transpires, is a member of a gang called the Cleanheads, who shave their heads as allegiance to their imprisoned leader. So our policemen heroes swagger on in and trade shots with the Cleanheads before successfully arresting them all (including the guy with Viktor Rosta's hundred-dollar bill half), after which Jim Belushi makes a joke about Marvin Hagler that never would be allowed in today's politically correct climate.
(Editorial aside: if you get touchy about racial stereotypes, this really, really isn't your kind of movie.)
So Viktor Rosta's drug deal is on hold for a second, and he gets arrested. This leads to the great scene back in Russia where a rookie gives one of Arnold's superiors gets a teletype saying Viktor Rosta's specific location:
Superior (rolling the word around on his tongue): Ameerrrrrrrica.
Rookie: America, da. CheeKAgo. GANGstair.
The superior pretends to hold a tommy gun and makes machine gun noises before dismissing the kid.
There ya go, one scene, ten seconds of screen time, and you can't help but like these dudes. It's a little classier than a bunch of American cops calling each other comrade and making cracks about vodka and Siberia (which we see later, and isn't nearly as cool). So Arnold is sent to the big, bad West on a quest of justice and revenge.
Arnold touches down in America with kind of a shit attitude. He's under orders to say nothing about Viktor Rosta to the Americans, to avoid embarassment, so he immediately rubs Jim Belushi the wrong way. They go to pick up Viktor Rosta, who mortally insults Jim Belushi, and it looks like everything's hunky dory. Until . . . the Cleanheads (out of jail on a technicality) and a couple Russians ambush Arnold, kill Jim Belushi's partner, and fuck off with Viktor. Arnold, however, fights through a concussion to grab a key Viktor drops before passing out.
So now the Russians are pissed at Arnold. Jim Belushi's pissed at Arnold for being unfriendly. Jim Belushi's bosses (Peter Boyle, Larry Fishburne) are pissed at both Jim Belushi and Arnold. Everybody's pissed. Viktor's pissed because his key is gone. Progressives are pissed off at the racism. It's a goddamn mess.
Jim Belushi decides to take some action, and brings Arnold to talk to Brion James, the imprisoned scumbag who tipped Belushi's partner to the whole Cleanhead mischegoss. Jim Belushi bribes Brion James for info, but Brion James smugly tells him nothing. Jim Belushi then goes into Brion James' pocket and finds, voila, a bag of drugs hidden in the cash roll, threatening him with a possession with intent to distribute bust, but Brion James retaliatates by saying “you're fired, asshole, my lawyer makes the ACLU look like fucking Nazis.” And, to Arnold, as punctuation: “And I ain't tellin you shit.”
Arnold introduces Brion James to Russian interrogation techniques, to wit, breaking one of his fingers. Brion James, sobbing, gives up the Cleanheads' deal with Viktor, but without any specifics. Arnold breaks a second finger, which reveals that Brion James isn't giving up the specifics because he doesn't have any. Arnold remarks on the superior efficacy of Soviet interrogation and leaves.
Belushi harangues Arnold about the necessity of respecting a suspect's Miranda rights, and Arnold points out that Belushi isn't exactly a Boy Scout himself. They then head over to talk to Gina Gershon, who Viktor called from jail when he was arrested. Belushi gives her a hard time, she tells him shit, except that . . . she's Viktor's wife so he can get a visa. Dum dum dum dummmmm.
A bunch of shit happens next, and I don't really remember what order it all happens in, but there's a shootout at the hospital where one of the Russians who sprung Viktor—who Jim Belushi shot—is killed by Viktor's other Russian, in drag, who is subsequently killed by Arnold. This leads to Peter Boyle confiscating Arnold's Russian gun, after which Jim Belushi loans Arnold a .44 (“come on, that's the gun Dirty Harry uses!” “Whoo ees Derty Herry?”) Then there's this underground parking garage meeting Gina Gershon sets up where Jim Belushi is held at gunpoint so Arnold and Viktor Rosta can have a conversation in English, because I guess the subtitle budget was running low. Then Jim Belushi and Arnold go to prison to talk with the leader of the Cleanheads, who talks a lot of prison library Marxism to Arnold, who gets so bored he threatens to cut the guy's balls off, before King Cleanhead voices his racist nightmare desire to sell drugs to every white person in America. Then Gina Gershon gets killed. Then a bunch of Cleanheads try to kill Arnold in his fleabag motel but kill a hooker's john and scare the shit out of the hooker instead. Viktor gets away with the key.
And Arnold and Jim Belushi gradually bond. There's this nice scene in a coffee shop where Jim Belushi orders tea for Arnold, just the right way, surprising Arnold. Jim Belushi says, “I saw Doctor Zhivago.” They talk about how they became cops, about their families, and so forth. Arnold's life, it's revealed, is kind of lonely and bleak, giving Jim Belushi some sympathy for him for the first time.
Eventually, our heroes figure out where Viktor's key is from: the bus station. Just as Viktor pulls off his deal, and treacherously shoots the last Cleanhead, Jim Belushi and Arnold close in to bust him. When Jim Belushi tries to arrest him, Arnold gets pissed, insisting that he take Viktor back to Russia, and as they argue, Viktor escapes. Our heroes give pursuit and get into a fucking sweet bus chase, destroying a bunch of stuff, including “a fucking Chicago landmark.” Eventually, they crash, with a train locomotive (hey, I didn't write the fucking script) broadsiding Viktor's bus.
Our heroes close in. Arnold draws down on Viktor Rosta and just motherfuckin smokes him. Jim Belushi walks up, compliments Arnold on the grouping of his shots, Arnold thanks him, hands him the .44, says something rude about the Russian gun being better, and walks off.
Arnold heads back home. In the airport, he and Jim Belushi watch a baseball game and discuss the possibility of America and Russia playing each other (“Be a hell of a World Series,” says Jim Belushi.) Arnold mentions a “tradition in my country” where friends exchange gifts, and he gives Jim Belushi his watch. Jim Belushi, touched by the gesture, gives Arnold his Rolex, explaining the back story and sentimental attachment . . . before realizing Arnold's is “a $20 East German watch.” Arnold smiles, and they bid each other farewell.
Now, let's not mistake my jumbled chronology for a lack of respect for this movie's quality. We are most certainly in the presence of greatness here. Arnold, as a leading man, has this stupid, baseless reputation among civilians for not being a good actor just because he's got a goofy accent. I'm sorry, folks, this motherfucker can hold it down. His comic timing is superb; just because the writing in a lot of his movies is stupid and they just give him wisecracks and stuff doesn't mean the man can't deliver a fucking line. His humor in Red Heat is deliciously dry, totally deadpan, and good God he's fucking funny at places.
Jim Belushi: “That suit's not going to explode or anything, is it?”
Arnold: “I think you're safe.”
Dude, seriously. If you want to piss on Arnold, this is what you can do:
Jim Belushi, of all people. Really good in this. The best part about his character in this is that he's supposed to be kind of annoying and not always that funny. In spite of his yammering, his casual racism, his stubborn ignorance . . . he's kind of an all right guy, definitely has a sentimental side, and despite busting Arnold's balls, genuinely wants to get along with him.
The actual best performance in Red Heat, though, is Ed O'Ross as Viktor Rosta. In real life, he sounds like he does in The Hidden or Lethal Weapon, a normal-voiced dude with a really thick Chicago accent. He sounds like he's been gargling vodka and broken glass as Viktor Rosta. It fuckin kills me listening to him talk, knowing how much it must hurt (in one play I was in one time, I did the Viktor Rosta voice as an homage and had a sore throat after every performance; my voice teacher threatened to kill me when she came to the show). But man is he bad. He is menacing. He fucks anybody over, and kills almost everybody. His stubble. His constant “who farted” Russian face. Viktor Rosta is sort of the Third World man's Hans Gruber: one of the great villains of all time.
When all is said and done, Red Heat is, if you want to be a reductive asshole, “just” a cop movie. But Red Heat is “just” a cop movie in the same way that Let it Bleed is “just” a rock 'n' roll record or Jameson is “just” a winter beverage or tits are “just” fatty tissue over the pectoral muscles. There's no benefit in being a reductive asshole. Red Heat is a pleasure in the same way the Stones, whiskey, and tits are. It's that essential to human happiness. If you have not sipped of its nectar, do.
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