Burt Reynolds was a movie star who became a
“Hollywood Legend” the hard way—he earned it. He started out in small roles on
TV in the 50s and 60s, went to Europe and made some spaghetti westerns, just
like his pal Clint Eastwood. He had his own TV series (“Hawk” and “Dan August”)
and gained stardom on the big screen after playing Lewis, one of the four guys
in “Deliverance,” who run into bad luck at the hands of some good ol’ boys in
the Tennessee backwoods. He became a superstar with the release of “Smokey and
the Bandit” (1977), which he starred in with Sally Field and Jackie Gleason.
His career ended with “The Last Movie Star,” (2017), where he basically played
himself, a faded legend, who still manages to hold onto his dignity. He was
about to play a small role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time . . . in
Hollywood (2019)” but died in 2018before filming began.
His career had a lot of peaks and valleys. “Heat”
(1986), now available on Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber, while an entertaining movie
with Reynolds at his charismatic best, was definitely not one of the peaks.
Considering it was written by Oscar-winning writer William Goldman, (“All the
President’s Men” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,”) and directed by
Dick Richards (“Farewell My Lovely”), it should have been a lot better than it
is. Reynolds plays Nick Escalante (also known as “Mex”), a Las Vegas bodyguard
who dreams of one day leaving the rat race in the States and going to Venice,
Italy to enjoy La Dolce Vita. Hmmm. That sort of reminds me of another guy
William Goldman wrote about once, only he wanted to go to Bolivia. Anyway as
“Heat” begins, Mex takes on a couple of jobs that he probably should have known
better than to accept. One has him protecting a nerdy dude by the name of Cyrus
Kinnick (Peter McNichol), who thinks he needs a bodyguard in case he wins big
at the casino. Mex doesn’t last long on the job when he discovers Kinnick’s
idea of big winnings is $50, and he quits. The other is a call for help from
Holly (Karen Young) a Vegas hooker, an old friend of his, who was beaten and
raped in a casino hotel room by three guys. She asks him to help her get
revenge.
Mex (you probably couldn’t use that nickname
today) finds out the rapist is a punk Mafioso by the name of Danny DeMarco
(Neill Barry), who has two musclebound bodyguards of his own. Mex never carries
a gun, but he’s known for being an expert with anything that has a sharp
cutting edge. He pays them a visit and takes all three of them down with
nothing more than the sharp edge of two credit cards and a few flying kicks, a-la
Bruce Lee. He calls Holly up from the lobby and she takes a pair of scissors
out of her purse and leaves Danny with a little souvenir on his private parts.
She finds $20,000 that Danny had flashed around to tease Mex with earlier and
offers half to him. He turns it down and tells her to leave town. It turns out
Danny is connected to a local Mafia boss by the name of “Baby.”
Holly leaves town but manages to get 10 grand to
him, which becomes a plot device that reveals that Mex has a gambling addiction
problem. He takes the money, turns it into $100,000 at the Blackjack table run
by a dealer named Cassie (Diana Scarwid), and ends up losing it all. So now we
know why Mex has trouble paying the airfare to Venice. Kinnick shows up again
and asks if he can just hang out with him so he can learn how to be a cool
tough guy like him. Sounds dumb, doesn’t it? It is. Somehow, even though
there’s a meeting with “Baby,” and later an action setpiece with Danny and some
new goons he’s hired, the story loses momentum.
Part
of the problem is Goldman’s script, which is all over the place, with enough
story elements for at least two different movies. Or maybe they planned to spin
it off into a TV series. But the biggest problem with “Heat” is what was
happening behind the scenes during production. “Heat” was originally to be
helmed by Robert Altman. That deal fell through, so they brought in Dick
Richards to direct and for some reason Richards and Reynolds didn’t get along.
It got so bad that a fight erupted and Reynolds punched Richards in the face.
Richards left the picture after directing only 13 percent of it and sued
Reynolds. “That punch cost me half a million,” Reynolds said. Television
director Jerry Jameson was brought in to finish the picture without receiving a
credit.
It’s
too bad in a way that Altman didn’t take the job after all. Goldman’s
screenplay, with all the various story ideas bouncing around in it, would
probably have been right up Altman’s alley. He might have come up with
something on the order of his earlier hits “The Long Goodbye” (1973) or
“California Split” (1974).
Kino
Lorber presents “Heat” in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio in a very clean
1920x1080p transfer. A rollicking audio commentary is provided by action film
historians Brandon Bentley and Mike Leeder. The disc also contains previews of
a number of Burt Reynolds films available from Kino Lorber. In case you’re
wondering if Mex ever get to Venice… I’ll never tell. But, if he did, let’s
hope he made out better than that other guy did in Bolivia. Recommended primarily for Burt Reynolds fans.