Red Heat (1985)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Linda Blair has stated that she was sold this film as a "female Midnight Express." Yes, it has elements of that. But it's more like an adult remake of Born Innocent. Linda's character even has the same name, Chris. Born Innocent represents Linda's best work as a juvenile. Her performance is better in Born Innocent than in The Exorcist. Red Heat may well be her best performance as an adult. Yet this is one of the most difficult Blair films to find. I don't think it ever got a proper theatrical release in the United States, although it may have played the grind house circuit. I first saw in on VHS year ago, and watched it recently again on YouTube. It's a wildly entertaining film that's face-paced and got it all - nudity, rape, cat fights, shower scenes, suicide, etc. You've seen it all before, but the setting in an East German prison before the wall came down (actually filmed in Hungary) adds a great deal to the mood and tone of the film. For Linda Blair fans, this film is essential. For fans of women in prison flicks, it's not to be missed.

One would think that putting Linda Blair (from "Chained Heat") and Sylvia Kristol (from "Emmanuelle") together in a women-in-prison flick would equal a great movie, or at least an entertaining heap of rubbish. Alas, no such luck. Blair plays the wrongfully-accused innocent well enough, and Kristol puts in a convincing performance as the prison's top bully, but both performances lack the necessary nuances - the good girl has to have an inner reserve of strength to help her survive the harsh prison, while the bully must occasionally show a seductive side. Absent those elements, what you get is an hour or so in which Kristol snarls and glowers and Blair whines. Even the obligatory cat-fight is botched, thanks to extremely poor lighting and ridiculously incompetent editing - apparently, someone believed that the spectacle of Blair and Kristol beating the crap out of each other was the LAST thing that anyone wanted to see.Of course, "Red Heat" has a bigger problem than the under-exploitation of its two main attractions: it's dreary as hell. There's the obligatory shower scenes and the lesbianism, but far more attention is paid to the less exciting indignities of life in an East German prison. True, it's more realistic, but does anyone really go to a women-in-prison movie to see realism?

Decent entry into the Women In Prison genre finds Linda Blair, two years after "Chained Heat", back in the slammer in this politically loaded yarn. She plays Christine Carlson, an innocent college student visiting her fiancée, Mike (William Ostrander), an Army lieutenant stationed in Germany. After a fight with Mike, Christine finds herself in one of those "wrong place at the wrong time" scenarios by witnessing the abduction of Hedda (Sue Kiel), a spy who was trying to defect. The evil authorities force Christine to confess to espionage activities, and both she and Hedda are thrown in an East German prison. This particular place is ruled by alluring Sylvia "Emmanuelle" Kristel as Sofia, a top con who relishes her position in the pecking order - and relishes enforcing it. "Red Heat" is all just somber enough, trashy enough, and entertaining enough to make it an acceptable diversion. The requirements of the genre are satisfactorily met, with the standard display of delectable female nudity, lesbian couplings, harsh violence, and mean, sadistic villains that fans come to expect. Linda is appealing as always, and compelling to watch as we see her prison stay start changing her - not exactly for the better, of course. One can hardly blame her whenever she does snap. The sub plot of Mike doing everything he possibly can do - his career be damned - helps keep the movie moving along nicely, and the story leads right up to a respectably rousing climactic prison break. Beefy actor Ostrander, whom you may recognize as having played bully Buddy Repperton in the film version of "Christine", is good, as is Kiel, although Kristel remains the most fun to watch as she clearly enjoys playing the part of the bad girl. With the action enhanced by typically fine and atmospheric music by Tangerine Dream, and capable direction by Robert Collector, this movie is definitely good of its kind, with a palpably serious mood and a lack of camp. Overall, solidly done and worth a look. Seven out of 10.

Not quite, but close! Linda Blair has proved again and again that she shares a rare quality with Mark Hamill, the ability to attach herself to one cinematic landmark and follow it with an entire career of complete trash. I saw RED HEAT on TV when I was about 11. Perhaps I was too young to understand this film's more basic appeal at that time, what I did get from it was that women in prison do crazy things to each other. Was there a plot beyond that? I'm not sure. There's something about an escape attempt but it isn't very clear. RED HEAT can really be best described as crap. It doesn't even succeed at that fun/pathetic B-movie level. The picture is alternately boring and confusing. The ending is about as clear as a muddy ditch and a lot less satisfying. I'd comment on Blair's performance if she'd actually given one. RED HEAT is a forgettable, exploitive little thing that should have been made by someone who understood the genre. I give it no stars.