Red Heat is a 1988 American buddy cop action comedy film directed, co-written, and co-produced by Walter Hill and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Soviet policeman Ivan Danko, and Jim Belushi as Chicago police detective Art Ridzik.

[3] Moscow City Police officers Ivan Danko and Yuri Ogarkov lead a sting operation against Georgian mafia kingpin Viktor Rostavili.

However, Rostavili manages to evade capture, and in an ensuing firefight kills Ogarkov before fleeing to the United States.

Against the wishes of the American authorities, Danko remains in Chicago to apprehend Rostavili, and Ridzik is assigned to be his minder.

Through an informant, Danko and Ridzik learn that Rostavili is working with local street gangs to purchase and smuggle cocaine into the Soviet Union.

Ridzik's superiors confiscate Danko's gun, as he is not licensed to carry one in the United States, and order him to cease the investigation.

Ridzik takes Danko to visit a locksmith, where they match the key to ones produced for lockers at a bus terminal.

Rostavili uses the key to retrieve his drug shipment, and steals an empty bus just as Danko and Ridzik arrive.

You then ask the question: Will the American audience accept an unapologetic Soviet hero, someone who will not defect at the end of the movie?

[4]According to Schwarzenegger, when Hill approached him he did not have a complete script – he just had the basic premise and the scene in which Danko rips off a henchman's leg to discover it is wooden and contains cocaine.

Schwarzenegger agreed to make the movie on the basis of this and Hill's track record, in particular his earlier buddy action comedy 48 Hours.

"[6] Hill says he deliberately chose to tone down the Schwarzenegger persona, making him more realistic and less prone to wisecracks.

[4]Schwarzenegger says Hill told him to watch Greta Garbo's performance in Ninotchka (1939) "to get a handle on how Danko [his character] should react as a loyal Soviet in the West.

"[7] The second movement ("Philosophers") of Sergei Prokofiev's Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution was used in the opening and closing titles of the film.

Among the writers who worked on it were Hill himself, Harry Kleiner, Troy Kennedy Martin, Steven Meerson & Peter Krikes, and John Mankiewicz & Daniel Pyne.

A spokesman for the Writers Guild said Hill was a member in very good standing: "He does tend to hire a lot of people but he pays well above minimums and we feel he's been quite straightforward about screen credit.

[5] The film shot in Moscow for four days, primarily at Red Square,[10] which became possible due to the rapid warm up of the cultural and political relations between the Soviet Union and United States.

It could be that audiences were not ready for Russia, or that my and Jim Belushi's performances were not funny enough, or that the director didn't do a good enough job.

The site's consensus states: "Red Heat's overreliance on genre formula is bolstered by Walter Hill's rugged direction and a strong touch of humor.

"[24] Variety gave it a positive review, stating "Schwarzenegger [...] is right on target with his characterization of the iron-willed soldier, and Belushi proves a quicksilver foil.

[25] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post panned the film: "Red Heat is poorly, or even indifferently, made.