City Heat casts two of Hollywood's biggest box office draws of the past forty years in the same film as different types. The film is set in Kansas City of 1933 which richly earned the reputation it had back in the day of a wide open town. This was in fact the Kansas City of Tom Pendergast. Clint Eastwood is a by the book and honest city detective, not an easy thing to be in Kansas City of that era. Burt Reynolds is a former cop who's now a roguish private eye. The two of them have a history, they like each other well enough, but they also grate on each other's nerves.
As all good private eyes have, Burt has a cool and efficient Effie like secretary in Jane Alexander and a partner in Richard Roundtree. Burt's one of the few back in the day who would even consider going into business with a black person. But Roundtree's playing a lone hand involving a runaway bookkeeper and a war between two rival mobs headed by Rip Torn and Tony LoBianco. For his troubles Roundtree winds up dead and in the same tradition of Sam Spade, when your partner's killed you do something about it.
But it's also Eastwood's homicide case and like it or not the two are forced into an alliance of inconvenience, kicking and screaming right up to the end of the picture. The plot also calls for rescuing Alexander who Eastwood fancies, Madeline Kahn who's Burt's girlfriend and chanteuse Irene Cara.
City Heat is not at the top of the list of films by Eastwood and Reynolds. But they've got nothing to be ashamed of here. The film glides effortlessly from comedy to drama and both guys get their innings to show why they're the superstars they are. You could do a lot worse than City Heat for your viewing pleasure.
As all good private eyes have, Burt has a cool and efficient Effie like secretary in Jane Alexander and a partner in Richard Roundtree. Burt's one of the few back in the day who would even consider going into business with a black person. But Roundtree's playing a lone hand involving a runaway bookkeeper and a war between two rival mobs headed by Rip Torn and Tony LoBianco. For his troubles Roundtree winds up dead and in the same tradition of Sam Spade, when your partner's killed you do something about it.
But it's also Eastwood's homicide case and like it or not the two are forced into an alliance of inconvenience, kicking and screaming right up to the end of the picture. The plot also calls for rescuing Alexander who Eastwood fancies, Madeline Kahn who's Burt's girlfriend and chanteuse Irene Cara.
City Heat is not at the top of the list of films by Eastwood and Reynolds. But they've got nothing to be ashamed of here. The film glides effortlessly from comedy to drama and both guys get their innings to show why they're the superstars they are. You could do a lot worse than City Heat for your viewing pleasure.