City Heat (1984) – Review
2 Stars
The two headliners are the best thing in this handsome but scattershot film set in Kansas City during the prohibition. Reynolds plays Mike Murphy, a private detective and former cop, struggling to pay his bills and in love with a socialite. Murphy is entangled with mobsters when he learns his partner has been murder while trying to organize a shakedown of the two most powerful mob figures in the city. Eastwood is Lt. Speer, a Dirty Harry like cop who speaks few words and carries a large shotgun.
Neither Speer or Murphy likes the other very much, but the duo are forced to work together amid fist-fights, shoot-outs and available women. All of which is done in a very self-conscious parody of the stars’ screen images. Director Richard Benjamin, who has dabbled with receding decades before in the period films My Favorite Year and Racing the Moon, showcases a lively ’30s in this frustratingly mismatched amalgamation of gangland caper, buddy cop flicks and screwball comedies.
The chemistry of the leads acts as a band-aid concealing a number of shortcomings in the production. The story is hazy and vague on plot-points and the violent shoot-outs seem to have wondered in from another movie. For instance, we are never clear what it is that the gangsters want back so badly from Murphy. Also a love triangle is set-up early on between Murphy, his secretary and Speer only to be dropped in favor of a perfunctory romance between her and Speer. Star power can make mediocre films more tolerable, and sometimes the promise of two screen idols teaming up onscreen leads to a disappointing final outcome. Depending on your personal level of interest in Reynolds or Eastwood will determine which verdict is more likely. Once again Reynolds displays under-rated comedic timing and flare.
Director: Richard Benjamin
Stars: Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, Madeline Kahn