Red Heat

By VARIETY STAFF

Carolco/Lone Wolf/Oak. Director Walter Hill; Producer Walter Hill, Gordon Carrol; Screenplay Harry Kleiner, Walter Hill, Troy Kennedy Martin; Camera Matthew F. Leonetti; Editor Freeman Davies, Carmel Davies, Donn Aron; Music James Horner; Art Director John Vallone
 
Arnold Schwarzenegger
James Belushi
Peter Boyle
Ed O'Ross
Larry Fishburne
Gina Gershon
 

Red Heat [from a screen story by Walter Hill] has earned a place in the history books as the first entirely American-produced film to have been permitted to lens in the USSR, even if location work was essentially limited to establishing shots.

Entire early Moscow section (shot mostly in Budapest) establishes the notion that one of the prices the East will pay for opening up is an increase in the Western disease of drug dealing. A particularly loathesome practitioner in the field named Viktor (Ed O'Ross) manages to slip through the fingers of the Red Army's top enforcer (guess who) and heads for Chicago.

In full uniform, Arnold Schwarzenegger arrives at O'Hare Airport, where he is greeted by two working stiffs from the Chicago Police Dept, James Belushi and Richard Bright. Belushi is assigned to keep tabs on the terminator as the latter tracks down Viktor.

Schwarzenegger, who when he dons a green suit is dubbed 'Gumby' by Belushi, is right on target with his characterization of the iron-willed soldier, and Belushi proves a quicksilver foil.

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1988. Running time: 103 MIN.