Straight from Mother Russia

Arnold Schwarzenegger debuted his career at the perfect time for a beefy, built, hulking slab of man-meat to become an action superstar. The U.S., coming out of the financial issues of the 1970s, the political strife, the recovery from the Vietnam War, was looking for symbols. The public didn’t want to wallow in misery, they wanted to rally together and be entertained as the country soared to new levels of prosperity. The dramas of the 1970s gave way to the action movies of the 1980s, which was best exemplified by the shift from First Blood, Stallone’s dramatic action film about a Vietnam Vet trying to get by in a country that hates him, to Rambo: First Blood Part II, where Rambo goes back to Vietnam and “wins” the war.

That was what the public needed. They wanted action stars that could “win” the Cold War. It was us versus them, the U.S. versus the Soviets (and we could make a case that the modern U.S. has always operated best when there was an “opponent” for the country to square off against), and action cinema reflected that. Arnold slid on in, his massive body its own special effect, and when the 1970s transitioned into the 1980s, he became the kind of star Americans craved. Arnold landed two franchises in a short span, starring in both Conan the Barbarian films in 1982 and 1984, and then also in 1984 he got what could be considered his career defining role as the T-800 in The Terminator. He was on fire (quite literally in that movie).

The key difference between Schwarzenegger and Stallone, though, was that Arnold could easily headline side-projects outside his franchise and make them work. Stallone always seemed lost in films like Over the Top and Tango & Cash, movies where he seemed uncomfortable playing the role when he really wanted to be a “serious actor”. Schwarzenegger was never a serious actor. Hell, his whole schtick was his one-lines he’d deliver with cocky swagger. And it worked. People would eat up his films, making them legendary entries in ways Stallone’s works outside Rambo and Rocky could never achieve.

Hell, while I’m probably one of the only people still talking about Over the Top, a movie about arm wrestling that actually exists, most people remember Arnold’s early films, like Red Heat, the film where the walking hulk of Austrian brisket helps end the Cold War. To be clear, Red Heat is not a good movie. I wouldn’t even put it in the top ten Arnold films of all time. But the film came out in 1988, in the middle of a huge string of hits for the actor, from Predator to The Running Man to Twins, and while this cop-actioner was a lesser effort for the Austrian hulk it also wasn’t a complete bomb. It coasted in and faded out, another check on his resume.

The film features Schwarzenegger as Russian police officer Ivan Danko, who at the start of the film is tracking down Georgian drug trafficker Viktor Segdavich Rostavili (Ed O'Ross). An early attempt at bringing Viktor in leads to the death not only of Viktor’s brother, at the hands of Danko, but also the death of Danko’s partner, at the hands of Viktor. It’s a blood debt that Danko cannot forgive, but Rostavili quickly flees the country on fake papers, hiding out in America where, quite quickly, he elects to pick up his business and try again.

Viktor makes a deal with the Clean Heads, a black militant gang who also drugs. He plans to make a buy for a whole ton of cocaine and get it back into Russia where he knows he can sell it for quite the profit. Only issue is that he gets popped for running a red light in Chicago and when the cops run his fingerprints they find out who he really is. They arrange for his transport back to Russia, with Danko flying in to pick the man up, but the transfer goes south, quick. The Clean Heads come to free Rostavili, gunning down one cop and leaving his partner, Detective Sergeant Art Ridzik (James Belushi), with his own bone to pick with the Georgian. This puts Danko and Ridzik together as an unlikely pair of cops who have to settle their differences to find Viktor and bring him to justice.

If we’re being honest, Red Heat is a film that just coasts by. It’s a movie made up of many, many parts that audiences had seen before, from so many other cop action movies of the era that it feels surprisingly generic despite having Schwarzenegger in a lead role. It feels too safe, too basic, and far too expected. Two mismatched cops being forced to work together? Oh, and one of them breaks all the rules? That’s Lethal Weapon. A fish out of water cop that plays his own game, much to the chagrin of who he’s partnered with? That’s Beverly Hills Cop. There’s threads of Midnight Run, Dirty HarryInspired by the Zodiac killer's spree of murders, this series of action flicks finds the titular character, Dirty Harry, fighting all kinds of ruffians and ne'er-do-wells with gruffness, a gun, and (far too much) street justice., and 48 Hours, one of which writer / director Walter Hill also worked on. As much as this is an original film, very little of it feels original.

Beyond that, though, the film also doesn’t seem to know what to do with Schwarzenegger himself. Most of the action in the film uses guns or cars, and when you go to see Schwarzenegger in a film you want to see him fighting dudes and being the hulk that he is. This film’s action doesn’t use him to good effect, to the point where just about anyone could have starred in his place and it would have been the same. Hell, the film has him opposite Jim Belushi, and both sides of the coin feel like Belushi roles. Schwarzenegger sticks out just for how much he’s wasted in the role.

Schwarzenegger said the film performed worse than he expected after it came out, but I somehow have to think that it wasn’t really a surprise. He seems bored in this film, lacking much of the charisma and cocksure attitude we’d come to expect from the actor. He’s at his best in the opening sequence where he gets to rage out, same some cool likes, and beat down other dudes while barely dressed in the snow. This whole sequence is dumb, over-the-top, and exactly what you expect from the meat slab in human form. Everything after, though, is just dreary cop drama, and he seems uncomfortable in the film, start to finish.

Belushi at least better suited to the material, playing the kind of schlubby cop that was expected for 1980s police films. He’s rude, sexist, pudgy, and all around the wrong kind of cop, which made him the right kind of actor for the role. With that said, his character, Ridzik, is wholly unlikeable. Belushi plays him well, if this was intended, but you can’t help but think that a more charismatic actor could have at least made Ridzik someone you love to hate instead of just someone infinitely hateable.

The reason the film works at all is simply because it’s treading ground that had been tread before, and it’s doing it about as well as could be expected from the tired material. It’s not fresh or interesting, even with the East meets West, Soviet in the U.S. angle, but it does have some moments that are at least watchable, a bit of cop action that plays out well enough. It’s a film that you can pop on and half watch because you already know most of what’s going to happen and where the story is going to go. Nothing is surprising, very little is interesting, but it does what it sets out to do with workmanlike capabilities.

I don’t think audiences missed out by skipping Red Heat. It’s as middle-of-the-road as an 1980s action film could be. It’s watchable enough, but when compared against everything else Schwarzenegger was doing at the time, it’s the filler on his resume, through and through. This is library space filler, not bad enough to be fun but not good enough to be deserving of Schwarzenegger or his legacy. It just exists.