Red Heat  ★★★

WHAT’s the chance of the US and Russia agreeing to let an American film crew into Moscow?

In the current diplomatic climate, I’d say very little.

But 30 years ago, when George Bush Snr and Mickael Gorbachev were in charge, things were different.

It was a post-Cold War period that also coincided with the ‘Glasnost’ spirit of greater Soviet openness progressed by Gorbachev.

One of the beneficiaries was maverick American director Walter Hill whose action/thriller Red Heat became the first American film permitted to film in Red Square.

The fact the film starred the biggest action star at the time, Australian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger, and portrayed US and Soviet police working together, obviously worked in Hill’s favour.

The result is an entertaining but by-the-numbers actioner lifted by the performances of Schwarzenegger as a Russian police officer and James Belushi, brother of John, as a Chicago detective.

Shwarzenegger’s character is sent to the US to extradite a Russian drug runner but is forced to team up with Belushi’s detective when the bad guy is freed on a legal technicality.

The rest of the film has the Russian cop trying to bend the rules and the American cop in turn trying to pull him up but also helping him bend them when required.

There are plenty of fist fights, including a bizarre semi-nude one at the start of the film, and the violent gun-play that Hill is renowned for. While both the leads give good performances, the script and chemistry between them isn’tenough to elevate the film to 48 Hours, Midnight Run or Bad Boys status.

There are lots of familiar, dependable faces in the supporting cast including Peter Boyle as the American police captain, a young Laurence Fishburne, Gina Gershon and Ed O’Ross as the villain.

If Red Heat does whet your appetite, there are far better Walter Hill directed films from the late ’70s and ‘80s to check out, including Driver, The Warriors, Southern Comfort, Extreme Prejudice and of 48 Hours with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy.