shaaazbat57

Sweating Bullets or Tropical Heat as I knew it in the UK hasn't had as much good press from reviewers as it deserves. People focus on the fact that it was filmed in Mexico, Israel and finally South Africa with beach scenes in Mauritius. Who cares I say, they look just as exciting and colourful as south Florida Keys where it is set. Then people attack the alleged bad acting, plots and scripts, yeah yeah I say, you have the same scenario on any TV show, even Magnum PI, Miami Vice and Silk Stalkings had similar negative issues. What Tropical Heat had loads of, was, charm, plenty of action and humour, and all achieved on a fraction of the budget of similar productions in Hollywood. Rob Stewart, the star and protagonist of Tropical Heat was about twenty-nine years of age when they began filming in 1990(ish) and had only done a few minor roles before this, yet, he held the show up high with his heartfelt, charm-filled boyish performance. Drama, pathos, tragedy and comedy were all thrown into the many types of plot-lines covered within this action show, with Rob weaving his acting skill with the gravitas of a young Pacino or De Niro. The genius even wrote and directed a few episodes. On a smaller than Hollywood budget like this had, many of the crew did other tasks. Harel Goldstein who was Executive Producer also directed, wrote and was even Second Unit Director on some episodes. Another of the writers, R. Scott Gemmill, went on to be a 'main man' on ER. JAG and NCIS LA. Many character traits that our protagonist Nick Slaughter has, appear to have been included in recent fictional characters, eg., Rick Castle in 'Castle' and Tony DiNozzo in NCIS. All these characters share a love of movies, flirt with the ladies, are incredibly mischievous and juvenile and are to quote Nick, probably "The World's Greatest Detective." Mention must go to composer Jeff Danna who scored the show from middle of season 1 and through to end of season 2 for adding a touch of musical class to the show when similar shows were using 'cheesy' jazzy music (like what Tropical early season 1 and ALL of season 3 also had). Mr Danna had what I would describe as 'ground-breaking' music for action crime. The BBC currently have a crime drama that share many of Tropical Heat's attributes, Hawaiian shirts, beach scenes and witty/smart one-liners. Yes, 'Death in Paradise, so I guess the Heat crew were way ahead of their time over twenty years ago. Someone please bring this amazing show back for a new batch of Tropical Heat stories (I have a potential feature-length episode all ready to go). Who knows, maybe Rob is still available..?

I'm not going to bore you with details about the plot, the acting, the scenery, the action, the music etc (all excellent I might add), this is just such a perfect movie experience no matter how many times you've watched it before. Towards the end, I'm thinking "Oh no... No way... There's not enough... They're not going to... etc". Fifteen times I watched this film in the cinema, and countless more times on video and DVD. Now I'm looking forward to the blue ray experience when it's released in that format in June this year. Where Eagles Dare would make it on to my favourite top five movie list every time, it's just so cool. Watch it soonest. Love those cable-cars...