Red Heat has quite the pedigree. It has Walter Hill directing. It has a score by James Horner. And look at this cast, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Belushi, Peter Boyle, Gina Gershon, Laurence (as Larry) Fishburne, Brion James, Ed O’Ross, Pruitt Taylor Vince, and Mike Hagerty.

That’s insane.

Red Heat keeps Hill solidly in violent, and foul-mouthed buddy cop territory, treading similar ground that 48hrs did, but trades racism for national pride.

Captain Danko (Schwarzenegger) is a cop from Moscow. His partner is dead, and he’s on the hunt for a drug dealer, Viktor (O’Ross) who skipped the country and ran to the West. Specifically Chicago.

Greeted by Police Chief Donnelly (Boyle), Danko is paired with Ridzik (Belushi) and the games begin.

Schwarzenegger is very much the straight man in this duo, standing as rigidly as his hair, but he does it with ease, and I like his turn in this film much better than his effort in Raw Deal. Belushi is frequently funny, not everything hits the mark though and it sometimes feels crass. But perhaps that’s the intention.

Horner’s score is everywhere, and it is undeniably him, though I prefer his work in the science fiction genres (and I have a soft spot for Braveheart and An American Tail).

O’Ross is suitably villainous, and the gunfights are loud and bloody, culminating in a showdown in a bus station with dueling buses. It’s raucous and violent, and while the film is solid, you find yourself looking around at this cast and just find yourself gobsmacked at all the familiar faces.

The film, like most of Hill’s work, looks gritty, and makes America look rough and dirty. Adversely, the sequences set in Russia (with Budapest standing in) look cleaner and more historic. I guess rough and tumble, and dirty is the price of freedom.

For the most part, the film still works. Schwarzenegger is surprisingly restrained, there are no real quips, and he plays everything strait-laced. There’s no zippy one-liners, his Danko is focused on his task, and everything else is extraneous.

Schwarzenegger and Belushi are front and center for the entire film. It is their film after all, but seeing the cast surrounding them, you wish they all had a little more time to show up and do their things. I mean what a cast!

This one did incredibly well at the box office, until Twins was released, and Schwarzenegger cleaned up proving he could do comedy.

Still, this is one of those films that I feel everyone saw in the 80s, and I know I’d seen parts of it, but I don’t think I’d ever sat through it until now. It’s fun, it’s very 80s, but that cast and that score… damn!