A male-bonding version of Ninotchka: a Soviet cop dispatched to Chicago to extradite a Georgian dope importer (new synonym for cocaine: "American poison"), and escorted around town by his wisecracking U.S. counterpart. Out of the ideological crossfire emerge some offhand comments on American capitalism (i.e., sex videos on the hotel television) and American sensitivity to human rights ("Even scumbags have rights in this country"). But these don't really lead anywhere -- except of course to a male bond. Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a truly impressive two-inch crewcut, could play the straight-man role in his sleep (the state in which he prefers to play all his roles), and his Russian humorlessness (stereotypes die hard, even among mediators of détente) at least has the benefit of keeping his speech clean and terse. James Belushi, on the other hand, reads the most neutral lines, as well as the more aggressively unfunny ones ("Kiev? Oh yeah, that's as in Chicken Kiev"), as though there were always hope for a laugh. And one can't help but reflect that a Chicago chief of detectives, needing a chaperon for a visiting Soviet, would tend to select for the assignment the man in his employ who most closely resembles Glenn Ford and would pass over the departmental clown. Directed by Walter Hill. (1988) — Duncan Shepherd
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