The opening is fun, bit its a little closer to The Naked Gun than The Big Sleep. In other words, closer to spoof than fun noir. But then they're not prepared to stick with it. There is nothing spoof about the rest of the script, its just a straightforward hardboiled noir imitation.
So this movie does two incompetent things: directly appropriates plot elements and scenes from previous and better noirs, and performs them in a way that isn't spoof enough to laugh, and isn't serious enough to be taken seriously.
You can tell this is right by watching the two leads. There's supposed to be a contrast between them, but not one so strong that they both think they're in different genres. If you just watch a one-shot of Reynolds, you can tell he thinks this is The Naked Gun, but if you just watch a one-shot of Eastwood, seems he thinks this is Dirty Harry.
But, in simple terms, the main problem with City Heat is its just plain uninteresting.
So this movie does two incompetent things: directly appropriates plot elements and scenes from previous and better noirs, and performs them in a way that isn't spoof enough to laugh, and isn't serious enough to be taken seriously.
You can tell this is right by watching the two leads. There's supposed to be a contrast between them, but not one so strong that they both think they're in different genres. If you just watch a one-shot of Reynolds, you can tell he thinks this is The Naked Gun, but if you just watch a one-shot of Eastwood, seems he thinks this is Dirty Harry.
But, in simple terms, the main problem with City Heat is its just plain uninteresting.