City Heat

Directed by Richard Benjamin and set in the 1930s, City Heat follows detective Speer (Clint Eastwood) and private investigator Mike Murphy (Burt Reynolds) as they reluctantly agree to team up to solve the murder of blahs partner (Richard Roundtree’s Dehl Swift). There’s little doubt that City Heat gets off to a distressingly disastrous start, as Benjamin, working from Sam O. Brown and Joseph Stinson’s script, delivers a convoluted, uninvolving narrative that’s entirely lacking in an entry point for the viewer (ie it takes an egregiously long time for the movie to even reveal what it’s about). The less-than-engaging atmosphere is compounded by a curious decision to keep Eastwood and Reynolds’ respective characters apart for much of the picture’s first half, which is a shame, certainly, given that the two actors work well together and share a fair amount of palpable chemistry. It is, then, perhaps not surprising to note that City Heat does mildly improve as it progresses, as the movie admittedly contains a number of above-average elements that allay the somewhat half-baked storyline – with, especially, the movie substantially benefiting from its strong production design and flurry of familiar supporting players (including Rip Torn and Madeline Kahn). By the time the underwhelming third act, which seems to consist mostly of tedious shootouts, rolls around, though, City Heat has firmly established its place as a disappointing misfire that squanders the efforts of its talented stars.

** out of ****