Asawin Suebsaeng, senior reporter for The Daily Beast and co-host of the Fever Dreams podcast, joins the show from Cincinnati to discuss Walter Hill’s underrated 1988 Cold War cop thriller Red Heat, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a KGB cop on the hunt for a Soviet gangster on the loose in the United States, forced to cooperate on the case with Chicago cop Jim Belushi. Arnold mentioned filming Red Heat in Moscow during his recent video address for the Russian people to tell them the truth about the war in Ukraine.

Swin and I talk about Red Heat as an amazing time capsule of the end of the Cold War and how the film holds a sympathetic view of the Soviet Union (in particular, their style of policing) and how in some ways this movie anticipated the current respect in some American conservative circles for the modern autocratic Russia of Vladimir Putin (himself a former KGB agent in the eighties!)

Plus: the secret connection Red Heat has to John Woo’s The Killer!

Patrons of the Junk Filter podcast receive at least two additional exclusive episodes a month: some of our notable previous guests include Jared Yates Sexton, David Roth, Bryan Quinby, Sooz Kempner, and Jacob Bacharach. More to come! Sign up at https://www.patreon.com/junkfilter

Follow Asawin Suebsaeng on Twitter and check out the Fever Dreams podcast!

Swin’s recent book with Lachlan Markay, Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump’s Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington, is available here.

Trailer for Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939)

Trailer for Red Heat (Walter Hill, 1988)