City Heat (1984)

Sadly Over-hyped

People are voting emotionally.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The weight of expectation for City Heat was massive, two iconic Hollywood actors together in a buddy buddy cop movie, one with nods and homages to film noir and old school gangster movies, it wasn't unreasonable to expect a movie to sit with the best on Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynold's then CV's circa 1984. Unfortunately it's no masterpiece or close to being in the upper echelon's of each actor's respective works. But that doesn't make it a bad film.A change of director saw Blake Edwards replaced by Richard Benjamin after Eastwood and Edwards, ahem, couldn't see eye to eye, so that immediately put the film on the back foot in many critic's eyes. Ironically Benjamin does OK - working from Edwards' script (there's a whole bunch of back stories and tittle-tattle assigned to this film if you care to search for it). Lots of fun here, though, as Clint and Burt, one a cop, the other an ex-cop turned PI, reluctantly team up to cut a swathe through the gangsters ruling the roost in prohibition era Kansas City.Eastwood does his straight backed machismo act, throwing awesome punches along the way, while Reynolds is wonderfully cheerful as a tough guy who all things considered, would rather not get hurt! The script is full of zingers, delivered with customary sardonic self parody by the stars, while the roll call of supporting actors is not to be sniffed at. Period detail is high end, with Nick McLean's photography carrying the requisite neo-noir impact, while the music tracking is pleasingly nostalgic.It's over the top of course and needlessly convoluted as per its yearning to be noirish, yet if you can cut back your expectation levels? And you can simply enjoy the sight of Eastwood and Reynolds having fun romping in this period? Then you just might enjoy this more than you dared to believe. 7/10

It's 1930s Kansas City. Private investigator Mike Murphy (Burt Reynolds) loses his partner who is brutally murdered after trying to blackmail a mobster with his secret accounting records. When a rival gang boss goes after the missing records, he is forced to team up with his ex-partner cop Lieutenant Speer (Clint Eastwood) to fight both gangs before KC erupts in a mob war.From a Blake Edwards story, this takes place when both Burt Reynold and Clint Eastwood was hitting a slow patch after being red hot. Clint would recover, but Burt never did. With the people involved, you would think this could be something incredible. But there is nothing but disappointment. Burt is playing his usual self, smirking thru his fight. Clint has no chemistry with Burt. The style is too stiff and weak. It has none of the grittiness required. It looks completely fake. Worst of all, it moves at a snails pace, dragging its feet. The dialog is stilted. There is no jokes, at least none that worked. In fact, none of it really worked.

From the other comments, it seems like most people expect movies starring superstars to always be block busters. Sometimes a movie is just a movie i.e. simple entertainment.This one is in the great tradition of the screwball comedies/caper comedies that used to be popular with Cary Grant, Tony Curtiss, William Powell way back when. It's funny & occasionally witty and the pairing of the taciturn Eastwood & prattling Reynolds along with Jane Alexandar as the sharp secretary makes for a fun couple of hours (OK, 93 mins). Compared to other Eastwood comedies such as "Every Which Way but Loose", this works better. Too bad critics & audiences didn't like it as much or we might have a nice set of sequels in the tradition of the Thin Man.

The title is a little bit strange considering that most of the scenes were filmed at night and there's not enough scenes involving fire or explosions. But it is a very underrated action-comedy film where two opposites policeman have to join forces to combat killers and gangsters. Sounds like "Rush Hour" and "Lethal Weapon" and it is quite similar in its humor but "City Heat" story happens in the 1930's. Detectives Speer (Clint Eastwood) and Mike Murphy (Burt Reynolds) were very good friends but the lack of discipline and a certain involvement with bad companies from the part of Murphy made these two guys not get along very well. Relax, this is not a so serious movie, their fights are quite funny. If Mike is getting beat up by tough guys and he asks for help Speer won't help except if one of these guys spill his drink. But they need each other again when one of Mike's business partner (Richard Roundtree) is killed after doing a risky business betraying his former associate. In the middle of all this there's plenty of mob godfathers (played by Tony LoBianco and Rip Torn) looking for something that Mike's partner hide.The whole plot is confusing and there's not enough space for incredible action scenes but at least writer Blake Edwards made a very funny movie. Not only the fights between Eastwood and Reynolds are good but it was included funny female characters too. Jane Alexander plays Addy the smart and lovable Mike's secretary and Speer's love interest; and Madeline Kahn plays Mike's love interest, a very rich woman. The problem with the villains is that they're not scary or funny, they just know how to disturb the peace of the main characters. Some of the shooting scenes and fight scenes are very absurd. A long shooting on the street with no one hitting no one, these guys needed a good training before being contracted by the mafia. Clint appears and shoot everybody. There's a fight scene in the beginning with Burt and two other guys, many punches in the face and no one is hurt, no blood appears, nothing. That was kind of lousy to see. Nothing original to see but it worths to see anyway. Reynolds and Eastwood were good partners in this film and a sequel could be good but unfortunately this wasn't a hit back in the 1980's. It's not as bad as critics and some people say, it has many funny moments (Eastwood is so serious that it's actually funny, he has great punchlines here), and the art direction is very careful and well made. 9/10