Rating 18
length 1h 44
Release 13.1.1989
Director Walter Hill
About
The Good
- Controversial, but the MVP of this movie for me is James Belushi. He has that humour and ‘swagger’ that I’m more familiar in seeing on the amazing Bradley Whitford. This character of Art is my favourite type of archetype. Why? Fuck knows. But there it is.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger is as on form as he always is. Not an Oscar winning performance, but lets face it, we wouldn’t want it any other way.
- The pairing of Schwarzenegger and Belushi is what makes this a good buddy-cop movie. They’re chalk and cheese, but their differences don’t evolve into an offensive hatred. In fact, I’d say these two would have worked well as regular partners.
The Bad
- Perhaps its watching the film out of the time in which it was made, but it wasn’t funny. The only times I did laugh, were mostly out of shock.
- The partnership of Art and Gallagher doesn’t really work for me narratively. It’s almost as if the character of Art was designed for a younger actor and a probie cop. It’s a shame because it would have given an opportunity for much more character development that would see him becoming the lead in his own duo by the film’s end.
The Ugly
- I lost a little interest about half way through. Around the time they question Gina Gershon’s Cat. I felt as if I missed something along the way and that it was a shoe-horned attempt at getting a female character some screen time.
Final Thoughts
It wasn’t the film I was expecting and it is flawed, however it is a decent watch and, who’d have thought it, the duo of Schwarzenegger and Belushi really works.
The Queens of Geekdom 