Red Heat | | Cast : | Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Belushi | | Director : | Walter Hill | | Studio : | Lions Gate Home Entertainment | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | June 17, 1988 | | DVD Released Date : | September 07, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 17, 2005 | | Summary | Fun movie...typical Arnold | Content
 | Arnold Schwartzenegger plays Soviet police-captain Vanya Danko, opposite Chicago PD's Art Ritsek (Jim Belushi), tracking down a Soviet drug dealer.
The contrast between the old Soviet Union and Chicago are striking. The USSR is clean, organized and oppressive while Chicago is dirty, chaotic and freewheeling. A great visual description of Communism vs. Capitalism.
A big letdown to me was when I figured out the handcannon carried by Arnold was a Desert Eagle .50AE pistol. Those things are way overused in Hollywood. It would have been better if they had kept the Soviets with eastern bloc firearms. The laminated SKS rifles being carried by the Red Square honor guard looked cool, and it seemed like all the other Soviet bad guys and cops were carrying Makarovs. The US based bad guys carried a wide variety of firearms.
This is a good movie that is typical Arnold. If you like Arnold, you will like this movie. Belushi is an added treat. |
| Rating | | | Date | January 07, 2005 | | Summary | Not as good as 1st release | Content
| Don't bother wasting your money if you think you are upgrading like I did. The earlier ARTISAN release is still much better than this special edition. The image is better and ALSO the sound. I don't know what Lions gate thought they were doing, but remastered? no. I compared both several times before writing this even though I only had to compare once. Might as well wait for a HD DVD to come out, this is a waste unless you want the additional features. |
| Rating | | | Date | November 08, 2004 | | Summary | You look like Gumby in that thing... | Content
| This is a pretty decent Schwarzenegger flick, but I was a tad underwhelmed by the whole thing. Arnold plays a detective from Russia on the hunt for an old foe, Viktor, who has escaped to the Windy City. Schwarzenegger then travels there and teams up with a wise-cracking cop played by Jim Belushi to hunt down Viktor. Obviously this is the same theme that runs through EVERY buddy-action movie, but that's not the problem. I actually wished there were more so-called buddy moments in the movie to make it more amusing. This movie is ok, and it's definitely NOT bad. If you're looking for more of an all-out action movie, give it a shot. If you're looking for pure Arnold '80s cheese, go for 'Commando', or 'The Running Man' instead. Either way, this one's only worth a late night rental. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 31, 2004 | | Summary | It was O.K. | Content
| When Viktor (Ed O'Ross), a narcotics kingpin from the USSR, escapes from prison and heads for Chicago, Russia's brawniest, most fearless and most disciplined police detective (Arnold Schwarzenegger) follows Viktor to the Windy City and teams up with a loud-mouthed American cop (James Belushi). Together, the mismatched, culture-clashing, rule-breaking duo must overcome their differences and attempt to track down the nefarious Viktor. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 10, 2004 | | Summary | America: Through a Glass Darkly | Content
| In RED HEAT, Director Walter Hill presents a view of capitalist America that is grim, squalid, and leavened only by the willpower of its residents to retain a sense of humor. And it is only Chicago detective Ridzik (James Belushi) who can see anything funny beneath the grime and slime through which he must daily wade. Hill contrasts the physical seediness of Chicago with its political sludge counterpart of Moscow at alternating points in the film. Arnold Schwarzeneger is Captain Ivan Danko of the Moscow Militia, a man much feared by the Russian underworld. Danko has no problem with strolling alone into a Moscow mafia bar and arresting a wanted hooligan. By the time both men meet, their sharply contrasting personalities have been etched in the audience's mind. Ridzik is a rules-bending cop who is in as much trouble with his superiors as is his arrest suspects are with the law. Belushi plays Ridzik with the same wisecracking persona that has come to mark his essential screen identity. Arnold as Danko plays the Moscow cop as a cross between the saturnine Terminator and the energetic Conan. When Ridzik is questioning a suspect in a Chicago precinct house and is getting nowhere fast, Danko shows Ridzik how a Moscow cop convinces a suspect to talk freely with a savage wrist wrenching.
The interplay between Belushi and Schwarzenegger hits exactly the right note throughout. The fine contributions of a stellar supporting cast of Gina Gershon, Peter Boyle, Lawrence Fishburne, and Ed O'Ross all meld to serve as a backdrop against which Belushi and Schwarzenegger play out what is essentially a pre-glasnot international Cop Buddy movie. On a political allegory level, the co-operation between the two must have, at the time, served to remind a world that even with two widely opposing world views, it was possible for co-operation to exist if only the parties involved could see that behind the more obvious differences in uniform lay a less obvious commonality of a shared purpose whose ultimate goal could be reached with a little laughter. RED HEAT is a fine movie that entertains even as it preaches. Not many comedies can do that. |
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