Wedged between high profile
box office hits Commando (1985) and Predator (1987), Raw Deal (1986) has become something of a forgotten movie in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career. It was a gritty crime story made at a time when the
action star could seemingly do no wrong with every movie doing well at the box
office. Not so with Raw Deal, which
barely made a profit in comparison to action movie rival Sylvester Stallone and
his own crime movie Cobra (1986),
which was a huge hit. Both were hyper-violent movies with a large body count,
but Raw Deal was a little too
generic, a little too formulaic despite Schwarzenegger’s trademark humor. Or
maybe audiences couldn’t buy an Austrian bodybuilder infiltrating his way into
the Italian mafia.
When a mob witness and the
FBI agents protecting him are brutally murdered by an efficient team of mafia
hitmen from the Patrovita family, Harry Shannon (Darren McGavin), the father of
one of the men killed, seeks out an old friend, Mark Kaminsky (Arnold
Schwarzenegger). He’s a disgraced ex-FBI agent now sheriff of a small town who
spends his time catching speeders and arguing with his drunk wife (Blanche Baker). When she hurls a freshly baked cake (with the word, “shit” scrawled on
it no less) at him, he merely dodges it and replies dryly, “You should not
drink and bake,” in what is possible the worst line ever uttered in a
Schwarzenegger movie. You have to give credit to the screenwriters – Gary DeVore and Norman Wexler – for actually trying to give Schwarzenegger’s
character some semblance of a backstory and actual conflict in the form of
marital strife.
Mark meets with Harry who
tells him of his desire of revenge for his son’s death. He asks Mark to go
undercover in the Patrovita organization and destroy it from within. In
exchange, Harry will pull some strings to get Mark reinstated as an FBI agent.
Putting up Schwarzenegger against an old pro like Darren McGavin was probably
not a good idea as it only highlights his lack of acting skills. McGavin is
quite good as the grieving father determined to take down Patrovita at any
cost. So, Mark fakes his own death and Harry sets him up with a new identity –
Joseph P. Brenner from Miami (?!) – and bankrolls the clandestine operation.
Mark goes about getting
noticed by the Patrovita organization in typical Schwarzenegger fashion – by
breaking up a crooked gambling operation run by a rival mob outfit led by
Martin Lamanski (Steven Hill). There’s something almost comforting about the movie’s
paint-by-numbers action sequences that wouldn’t look out of place in an episode
of The A-Team and are filmed and
edited so cleanly that we always know what’s going on as Mark busts some heads
and then drives a truck into the joint.
Watching Arnold
Schwarzenegger work a room in Raw Deal
is amusing and fascinating because he walks so stiffly, like he’s an alien
trying to act like a normal human being. Even his line deliveries are robotic
in nature, but you have to give him an A for effort. He is obviously more
comfortable in the action sequences where he gets to beat guys up while
dispensing quips. And that is part of Schwarzenegger’s charm. Admittedly, there
is something inherently silly about him managing to infiltrate the mob by
merely slicking back his hair and wearing expensive suits, but let’s face it,
with every one of his movies you have to suspend your sense of disbelief.
However, Raw Deal’s premise pushes it
perhaps too much – hence its disappointing box office returns. Audiences just
weren’t buying him in this role.
The script clumsily attempts
a romance between Mark and Monique (Kathryn Harrold), a beautiful gambler, that
results in our hero passing out before he gets anywhere with her in bed. Of
course, it’s all a ruse because Mark is still loyal to his wife and Monique is
spying on him for Max Keller (Robert Davi), the right-hand man to Patrovita’s
(Sam Wanamaker) top enforcer Paulo Rocca (Paul Shenar). Poor Kathryn Harrold is
saddled with the thankless gangster moll role, but gets a bit of a backstory
with Monique’s gambling problem and actually helps Mark out in a scene where a
bunch of Lamanski’s goons try to work him over. She gets in a few shots instead
of being a helpless damsel in distress. God bless her, Harrold gives it all she
has and really sells the mundane dialogue as best she can.
The always interesting to
watch Robert Davi shows up as a thug who puts on classy airs, but is supposed
to be showing Mark the ropes even though he’d rather hang him by them. Davi is
one of those guys that exudes an authentic tough guy vibe and he gives his
scenes with Schwarzenegger a palpable sense of menace. Maybe I’ve seen him
playing a good guy in too many episodes of Law
& Order, but I just couldn’t buy Steven Hill as a rival mob boss. He
looks too frail and out of place among the gangsters. He also doesn’t get much
to do and the scenes he has are unconvincing.
Another problem with Raw Deal is that it doesn’t have a bad
guy who provides a credible threat to Schwarzenegger’s character. Commando had a memorable villain in the
crazed Bennett, played with over-the-top gusto by Vernon Wells (The Road
Warrior), and Predator had a nearly
invisible alien picking off the movie’s team of badass protagonists in deadly
efficient fashion. In comparison, Raw
Deal has Sam Wanamaker’s blustery mob boss who doesn’t do much but yell at
his underlings and wastes Paul Shenar (Scarface)
as an ineffectual right-hand man. I had hopes that Robert Davi would step up
get a chance to go toe-to-toe with Schwarzenegger at the movie’s climax, but
his character is dispatched partway through and his absence leaves a sizable
void that is never filled.
Not
surprisingly, Raw Deal was savaged by
critics. Roger Ebert gave the film one-and-a-half stars and wrote, “It replaces
absolutely everything – plot, dialogue, character, logic, sanity, plausibility,
art, taste and style – with a fetish for nonstop action.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote,
“Though the language is vulgar, the macho posturing absurd and some of the
plotting inscrutable, Raw Deal has a
kind of seemliness to it.” The Los
Angeles Times’ Sheila Benson wrote, “Actually, it’s the audience who needs
the sympathy; Schwarzenegger seems faintly bemused but game for the script’s
most howling excesses; he simply lowers his head and gets on with the action.”
Finally, Gene Siskel gave the film one star and wrote, “How can you screw up an
Arnold Schwarzenegger action picture? All you have to do is give the guy a gun
and tell him to shoot.”
In some respects, Raw Deal is reminiscent of the
television show Wiseguy, which also
featured a cop going undercover to fight crime, only way more violent and not as
well written or acted. What saves it from being a total waste of time is the
perverse, dare I say cheeky, sense of humor occasionally at work, like when
Mark casually takes out one of Patrovita’s gravel pits full of anonymous
flunkies with “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones blasting on
the soundtrack. Naturally, the highlight of Raw
Deal is its climax when Schwarzenegger goes into killing machine mode,
transforming into a one-man-army as he take out a room full of on Patrovita’s
men.
Raw Deal
is one of those ‘80s action movies that you don’t have to think too hard about
(or at all), but just enjoy it for what it is – a competently made genre piece
with car chases and shoot-outs. And so this movie was considered a hiccup in an
otherwise successful run of movies in the ‘80s for Schwarzenegger as he went on
to make Predator and a string of
other very successful efforts, continuing his cinematic competition with
Stallone. Raw Deal tends to be a
forgotten movie in Schwarzenegger’s career and watching it again only
reinforces why this is the case.
