Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Red Heat and Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry sequel The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool squared off in 1988, but Arnie proved to be the loser. Much has been made of the Stallone and Schwarzenegger rivalry of the 1980s and 1990s, where the two stars often competed for who had the biggest muscles, explosions or bodycount.

On the flipside, Arnie had no rivalry whatsoever with Clint Eastwood, with the two s being on very different career tracks. They rarely had projecrs opening side by side, either, though it could happen on occasion. For instance, Last Action Hero and Eastwood’s In the Line of Fire opened close to one another in the summer of 1993.

Whereas the PG-13 Last Action Hero was one of Arnie’s first big bombs, the R-rated In the Line of Fire grossed $187 million (via The Numbers). So, not only did Clint’s film gross $40 million more than Schwarzenegger’s, it did so on about half the budget.

Arnold and Clint first dueled in 1988, when they both had gritty, R-rated action thrillers opening close to each other. Red Heat cast Schwarzenegger as a taciturn Russian police officer named Danko chasing a criminal to Chicago, while Eastwood’s The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool was the final entry in the Dirty Harry movie franchise.

Schwarzenegger’s Red Heat & Eastwood’s The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool Faced Off In The Summer Of 1988

Schwarzenegger Vs Eastwood!

Red Heat and The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool opened within a month of each other in 1988, a time when Schwarzenegger and Eastwood were both on H๏τ streaks. Arnie was fresh off Predator and Twins, while Eastwood had fronted hits like Pale Rider.

Red Heat and The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool have plenty of similarities too, with both following tough cops with a fondness for bending the rules in search of results. Red Heat has its share of silly moments and over-the-top action, but on the whole, director Walter Hill gave the Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie a grit that The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool lacked.

In general, Red Heat is the more enjoyable film, even if certain elements like a male ᴀssᴀssin dressing as a Sєxy female nurse haven’t aged gracefully. Hill knows how to shoot a propulsive action scene, he plays to Schwarzenegger’s strengths, and despite being longer than The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool, Red Heat still feels shorter.

Red Heat Poked Fun At Clint Eastwood’s Most Iconic Character

“Who is Dirty Harry?”

While Arnie’s rivalry with Stallone was genuinely tense during their heyday (they’ve since become best friends), Schwarzenegger has always loved Clint. Speaking with Rotten Tomatoes, the star even labeled Eastwood’s Unforgiven as one of his favorite movies.

I always idolized [Clint] since before I came over to America. I loved his Western movies and followed his career very closely, then became friends with him and really admired him.

That’s why Red Heat contains some playful jabs at Eastwood’s most iconic character. When his Russian pistol is confiscated by Chicago police, Danko’s American partner Ridzik gifts him the “most powerful handgun in the world,” the .44 magnum. Danko dismisses this claim and states his gun is the most powerful, while Ridzik retorts that Dirty Harry uses a .44 magnum.

Danko then breaks the fourth wall and asks, “Who is Dirty Harry?“ Even after gunning down his archnemesis with the .44 in Red Heat’s ending, an unimpressed Danko still claims his other weapon is superior and dismissively hands it back to Ridzik.

The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool Narrowly Beat Red Heat At The Box Office

The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool’s performance made Clint’s day

Despite Red Heat taking sH๏τs at its Dirty Harry rival in its marketing, The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool outgrossed it with $39 million. Red Heat nabbed about $35 million in contrast, and was considered a disappointment by Schwarzenegger after coming off several hits.

If nothing else, the fifth Dirty Harry just proved that Eastwood’s star hadn’t dimmed with audiences. Still, the critical response was muted (it stands at 53% on Rotten Tomatoes) and is considered one of weakest sequels in the franchise. Compared to the original, The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool feels like an uninspired episode of a police procedural.

The sequel also followed in the footsteps of the previous Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact, which was a much bigger hit in 1983. The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool is entertaining in an undemanding way and features a very inventive car chase involving a toy car wired to explode, but it’s not one of Eastwood’s better efforts by any standard.

The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool Marked The End Of The Dirty Harry Franchise

Clint never picked up the .44 magnum again

Eastwood has only fronted a handful of franchises, including the Dollars trilogy. Dirty Harry became his signature character throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but by the time the credits roll on The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool, he seems ready to put the detective to bed for good.

It appears in the aftermath of The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool’s middling reception, Eastwood never gave serious thought to Dirty Harry 6. He once mulled appearing in an open-world video game take on the character, while Dwayne Johnson was rumored to be the frontrunner of a potential Dirty Harry remake during the 2000s.

Eastwood signed off on traditional action roles with 1990’s The Rookie (which famously employed more stuntpeople than actors), which underperformed. 1992’s Unforgiven marked a new phase of Clint’s career too, one where he was more introspective regarding his screen image and age, and a sixth Dirty Harry wasn’t going to fit that mold.

The ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Pool just about beating out Arnie’s Red Heat is its only real accomplishment, and fans of Eastwood’s detective didn’t need another disappointing sequel from the series. It’s hard to picture a reboot ever happening, for the simple reason that replacing Eastwood as Dirty Harry is a borderline impossible task.

Source: The Numbers, Rotten Tomatoes, Rotten Tomatoes