Three Kinds of Heat is a Cannon film starring Robert Ginty as a State Department agent on the trail of an evil criminal organization known as the Black Lion. In a shootout in the JFK airport customs area, he meets Hong Kong detective Shakti Chen, and NYPD cop Victoria Barrett. To help in his investigation, INTERPOL allows him to recruit the two women, and now it's an international hunt, as they travel to London, then back to NYC, finding danger and intrigue all along the way. Will they finally take down the Black Lion and save the day?
This is from 1987, but it feels like it might have been '84, and that difference actually plays better for me. For Cannon and Ginty fans, this is probably one of the more lesser-known ones, but it's a lot of fun. The Ginty you get is the Ginty you want, a little sleazy, a little mumbly, but ultimately someone you want to root for and enjoy seeing when he's onscreen. And then Shakti Chen and Victoria Barrett are great as his part of his team. You know Ginty asked to have them help because he thought they were hot, but he also knew they could more than hold their own, which they do. Finally, the action was solid too--perhaps there could've been more of it, but the combination of how great the action we get is, and the fun interplay between Ginty, Barrett, and Chen, it all works. This is a fun Saturday night throwback that will get you to the church on time.
We're only at 8 films for Ginty, which feels low, but when I looked, I did Code Name Vengeance back in February, but hadn't done one before that since December of 2022. Out of the ones I watched for the podcast episode, I think I have a few more of those to cover, as long as they're available on streaming. He doesn't have as much that we can review on the site--I think I count 12 more of his that we could do post, so that would barely get him to 20 tags--but he's so iconic, especially in the early DTV space, that the volume of tags doesn't begin to underscore his overall influence, and a movie like this really drives that home. This is worth watching primarily for Ginty, and he doesn't disappoint.
Cannon Films on the other hand is now at 44 films on the site--you'll see 45 tags, but remember we did American Ninja 2 twice. I think this is probably more substantial as a Ginty film, but it still feels authentic as a Cannon flick, especially from the 80s like this. When that logo appears at the beginning, you get that comfort food feeling telling you you're probably going to have a fun movie night, and the film delivers that quality comfort food you anticipate from seeing the logo. It's another area where the modern DTV flick can't compare. The average DTV movie today has 5-7 production company logos before the film starts, and none of them evoke the kind of feeling you get from one Cannon, PM Entertainment, AIP, Vestron, etc. Because the modern DTV flick can't compete with that, the movies are already working uphill with us as fans, while the Cannon film can use the cache of its logo to put us in a happier mood before the film even starts, forcing us to at least go easier on it, if not like it better as a result. By the same token, it's not just the logo, Cannon films may have been on a budget too, but not to the level modern DTV productions are. Between the fact that this was shot in NYC and London, and the level of special effects employed, you'd never see anything like this today. Imagine a director saying to their line producer they want to shoot in NYC and London today. The producer would laugh and say "just make it work in Georgia."
Our other two stars were Victoria Barrett and Shakti Chen. Barrett we haven't seen on the site before, and she hadn't done much before this, nor much since, but she was really good here, and I thought she and Ginty had great chemistry. Chen also hasn't been in much before or since, but she has been on the site before, in the Gary Daniels film Deadly Target. She's also been in a couple 80s classics, Volunteers and The Golden Child. The other thing is she was married to the film's director, Leslie Stevens, and was with him until his death in 1998. Another fun, solid performance from her, and often while Barrett and Ginty were doing their thing, she'd sneak off on her own, which led to some great interactions, like one where she interrupts a craps game.
Finally, early in the film Victoria Barrett tells Ginty and Chen "this is the Lower East Side, this is no-man's land." For anyone younger, that probably wouldn't make any sense, as the Lower East Side hasn't just been gentrified, it's in like a post-gentrification state. When I had Freddie Young from Full Moon Reviews on the pod to discuss Frankenhooker (episode 156), he talked about all the changes New York City has gone through since that film or this film was made. It's fascinating, because we think of New York as a character on its own, and in this movie it was co-starring alongside another world city in London, and we get that juxtaposition with London as the ritzy city with the fashion show, while NYC is the gritty one with the seedy warehouses and ladies of the night patrolling the streets. I don't know that anyone wants New York to fully go back to what it was--even Anthony Bourdain when he complained about what it became on episodes of No Reservations and Parts Unknown couldn't have fully wanted that--but there's a happy medium between that and the thing it's become. The Lower East Side may not be the no-man's land it was in the 80s, but it's a different kind of no-man's land now.
And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can stream this free on Prime. That's your best bet, and well worth it. Maybe not the top tier of Cannon and Ginty, but it'll get you to the church on time.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094135
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Got the old VHS of this one, it's a good time!
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome!! I think this is one that's better on VHS for sure!
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