Red Heat(1988)

SHORT VERSION:
Danko and Ridzik eventually find out that Viktor is getting his drug shipment at the local bus station, but when they confront him there, they get into a brief argument over who gets to arrest him. Suddenly, a female passerby comes into the middle of it, and when Ridzik yells for her to move, the distraction enables Viktor to shoot at him and Danko a few times with his handgun before stealing a bus and driving away.

Danko and Ridzik commandeer a bus of their own and pursue him across Chicago until they stop at a train yard, where Danko and Viktor drive their buses towards each other at full speed. Unwilling to let himself get possibly killed, Ridzik steers Danko away from Victor, but he causes the bus to crash. Viktor’s bus then gets hit by an oncoming train and rendered inoperable as well. After all of the men get out of their wrecks, Danko walks straight towards Viktor and shoots and kills him.

Before Danko board his flight home to Moscow, he and Ridzik exchange wristwatches as a “souvenir for friendship”.

LONG VERSION:
After returning to his hotel following a rough night out with Ridzik (Jim Belushi), Danko (Arnold Schwarzenegger) finds out from the desk clerk that a woman has left him a bunch of messages. Knowing that Cat (Gina Gershon) – a woman Viktor (Ed O’Ross) wed in a marriage of convenience who has been swept up in all of the madness – has been leaving them, Danko calls the number provided and reaches her at a payphone. Cat explains to Danko that she wants her old life back and needs protection from Viktor, and after telling him that Viktor’s drug shipment is coming in tonight, she says that, in exchange for being allowed to go free, she will provide him and Ridzik with the information on when and where the drug deal will be going down as soon as she finds out from Viktor. Danko promises to do what he can to help her if he gets Viktor, and she hangs up.

Danko hides Viktor’s locker key in one of the light fixtures in his room, oblivious to the fact that Viktor and a few “cleanheads” (members of an African-American gang with shaved heads that he is doing business with) are watching him from the outside. They go into the hotel, and when Viktor looks at the register and sees the room Danko is staying in, he takes the cleanheads upstairs, but directs them to break into a neighboring room while he hides in a nearby stairwell, where they shoot a random guy to death and subsequently draw the conclusion that Viktor set them up. Having overheard the gunfire, Danko leaves his room toting a revolver Ridzik gave him earlier on (after having been forced to surrender his sidearm to Chief Donnelly [Peter Boyle]) to investigate, giving Viktor a chance to enter his room and retrieve the locker key. Danko soon comes under fire from the cleanheads and manages to blow them all away, and then he deduces that Viktor is in his room awaiting an opportunity to take him out. Viktor tries but fails, and he soon escapes by jumping out of a hall window into the Chicago River.

As the police are checking out the crime scene, Donnelly expresses his belief to Lt. Stobbs (Laurence Fishburne) that Danko is still withholding information from them. We then see Viktor getting together his locker key, silenced sleeve gun, passport, and half of a $100 bill, and we overhear a TV news report saying that Cat was found dead in the river (having obviously been murdered by Viktor for speaking to Danko). After Danko, Ridzik, Connelly, and Stobbs check out Cat’s corpse in the police morgue, Connelly has Stobbs inform Danko that he is being sent back to Moscow and then inform Ridzik that he will be riding the desk effective immediately. Ridzik and Danko then go to a key shop owned by Ridzik’s ex-brother-in-law Pat (Mike Hagerty) so he and Ridzik can talk about other matters, but Danko lets Ridzik know that he wrote down the key’s number and letter sequence on a napkin. Once they get to the shop, Danko checks out one of Pat’s books on keys and finds that the locker key is the kind of key used on bus terminal lockers.

Meanwhile, at the bus station, Viktor passes the key along to the cleanhead Salim (J.W. Smith), who retrieves a suitcase full of money from a locker. He takes it into the bathroom, after which Viktor meets him there, and he tells Viktor that the drugs will arrive at 9:30 p.m. Viktor then turns on him by gunning him down with his sleeve gun. Danko and Ridzik then arrive outside the station, but before going in, Ridzik tells him to go in the front and work his way to the rear while he covers the back, but orders him to not try to be a hero. Viktor goes outside and sets the suitcase down on a luggage cart, then asks a Mexican man if he has change for a $100 bill and produces the half of the $100 bill he has. The man provides the other half, showing that he is the Mexican drug cartel representative he is supposed to meet, and the man informs him that his merchandise is in the luggage trunks. The Mexican loads the suitcase with the cash into a bus and it departs.

Before he can get the drugs, Viktor finds himself confronted by Danko and then by Ridzik. However, the two cops get into a brief argument over who gets to make the arrest, and when a female passerby suddenly comes into the middle of it, Ridzik yells for her to move, and this distraction gives Viktor a chance to whip out a handgun and shoot at them both before running off. Viktor then steals a bus and drives away, prompting Danko to steal a bus of his own and pursue him, and Ridzik gets aboard before Danko can build up enough speed. The chase goes across Chicago and wreaks quite a bit of property damage before coming to a stop at a train yard, and Danko and Viktor decide to drive their buses towards each other at full speed. Before they can collide with each other, Ridzik grabs the wheel and yanks it over to the right, unwilling to let himself get possibly killed, which sends his and Danko’s bus over a train car and onto its side. Viktor’s bus then gets slammed in the side by an oncoming train, rendering that inoperable as well. Danko and Ridzik get out, as does a bloody Viktor, and Danko tells Ridzik that he will take care of this, which Ridzik yields to. Danko proceeds to walk straight towards Viktor, and Viktor screams and fires off some shots, but they all miss, and Danko returns fire and kills him.

While waiting with Ridzik for his flight home a day or two later, Danko tells Ridzik that it is a custom in the Soviet Union to exchange articles as a souvenir for friendship, so he has decided to give him his wristwatch. Ridzik gives him his in return, and Danko last tells him that they are police officers, not politicians, so it is okay for them to like each other. They then shake hands before Danko heads off to board his plane.