Raw Deal (1986 film)

Raw Deal is a 1986 American action film directed by John Irvin and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kathryn Harrold, Darren McGavin and Sam Wanamaker. The film was released in North America on June 6, 1986. The film tells the story of an elderly and embittered high-ranking FBI chief, Harry Shannon, who wants to get revenge against a Mafia organization and sends a former FBI agent and now small-town sheriff Mark Kaminski to destroy the organization from the inside.

For other films named Raw Deal, see Raw Deal.
Raw Deal
Theatrical release poster by John Alvin
Directed byJohn Irvin
Produced byMartha Schumacher
Screenplay by
Story by
Starring
Music byChris Boardman
CinematographyAlex Thomson
Edited byAnne V. Coates
Production
company
  • Famous Films
  • International Film Corporation
Distributed byDe Laurentiis Entertainment Group
Release date
  • June 6, 1986 (1986-06-06)
Running time
105 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$11–12 million[2][3]
Box office$16.2 million[4]

The film received mixed reviews and was a failure at the box office, grossing $16.2 million against its $11–12 million budget.[2][3][4]

Plot

On December 16, 1985, in a remote wooded cabin, a mob informant is under protection by the FBI. They are ambushed by a hit squad who brutally slaughter the bodyguards and the witness. One of the agents killed is Blair Shannon, son of FBI Agent Harry Shannon, who vows revenge.

After capturing a man posing as a motorcycle cop, small-town sheriff Mark Kaminski goes home to his alcoholic wife Amy, who resents what their lives have been reduced to and in a drunken fit throws a cake at him. Kaminski once worked for the FBI, but five years ago he brutally beat a suspect who sexually assaulted and murdered a young girl. Kaminski was given the option to "resign or be prosecuted" by ambitious prosecutor Marvin Baxter, who is now Special Federal Prosecutor heading up a committee investigating the dealings of Luigi Patrovita, the strongest of the Chicago Outfit Dons.

Due to a leak within the FBI ranks causing their agents to be killed, Shannon recruits Kaminski for an unsanctioned assignment to infiltrate and dismantle Patrovita's organization. Kaminski fakes his own death in a chemical plant explosion and poses as convicted felon Joseph P. Brenner. He manages to get an audience with Patrovita's right-hand man Paulo Rocca, and convinces them of his worth by harassing Martin Lamanski, a rival mob boss who is trying to move in on his former boss Patrovita's territory. While at Patrovita's casino, hidden in a basement level of a high class hotel, he makes the acquaintance of Monique, who works for Rocca's top lieutenant Max Keller.

Kaminski continues to work his way into the good graces of the Patrovita family, including devising a plan that recovers $100 million of heroin and cash seized by the feds from one of Patrovita's hideouts and simultaneously assisting in Lamanski's assassination. Keller isn't convinced that 'Brenner' is who he says and manages to find proof of the deception, showing Kaminski's photo to a police informant who previously arrested the real Brenner. The leak the FBI has been looking for is revealed to be Baxter, who is forced to stay close to Patrovita. Kaminski accompanies Keller to a cemetery for a hit job, but discovers that the target is Shannon, forcing Kaminski to blow his cover and kill Keller. In the ensuing shootout, Shannon is severely wounded and crippled.

Kaminski escapes with Monique's assistance. He tells her to go to the airport and wait for him. After gathering an arsenal of firearms, Kaminski raids one of Patrovita's gravel pits, killing everyone and stealing a large amount of drug money. He then sets off for Patrovita's casino, where he embarks on a killing spree, single-handedly wiping out all his soldiers, including the men directly responsible for the murder of Blair and his fellow FBI agents. Rocca and Patrovita retreat to a back room, but Rocca is cut down in a barrage of gunfire. Patrovita flees into an office pleading for his life, but Kaminski mercilessly guns him down. On his way out, he encounters a whimpering Baxter and offers him a gun with the same line Baxter gave him five years earlier: "Resign, or be prosecuted. Any way you want it." Kaminski starts to walk off, and when Baxter attempts to shoot him, Kaminski turns and shoots Baxter dead in self-defense. After driving to the airport, Kaminski hands a duffel bag containing $250,000 in cash to Monique and gets her on a chartered plane, telling her she is free and can start a new life with no obligations to anyone.

During the aftermath, Kaminski is reinstated with the FBI and is reunited with a pregnant Amy. Kaminski visits a despondent Shannon, who refuses to undergo physical therapy. In order to thank Shannon for helping him, Kaminski asks him to be his child's godfather in exchange for completing his therapy, which Shannon accepts.

Cast

Production

The film was originally produced so that Dino De Laurentiis could inject some quick cash into his long gestating project Total Recall, a film for which Laurentiis had owned the rights, and one in which Schwarzenegger would later take the leading role. Partly due to the poor box office performance of Raw Deal, De Laurentiis would eventually file for bankruptcy and the rights to Total Recall were sold to Carolco Pictures. At the time, Schwarzenegger was still under contract with De Laurentiis for a number of Conan the Barbarian sequels, and in exchange for dissolving this multi-picture agreement, Schwarzenegger agreed to star in Raw Deal. Initially, Schwarzenegger was more interested in doing Total Recall but De Laurentiis objected as he did not feel that Schwarzenegger was right for the leading role. Patrick Swayze was cast before De Laurentiis' bankruptcy.[5]

Filming was done on location in Chicago, Castle Hayne, North Carolina and Wilmington, North Carolina at the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group Studios.[6] The film was originally intended to be called "Let's Make a Deal", and during production and filming this was changed to "Triple Identity". This referenced the fact that the lead character goes from being an FBI agent, to a small-town sheriff, and then to an undercover operative. In the end Raw Deal was the chosen title, in an attempt to make the film sound more like a regular action film.[5]

Release

Home media

Raw Deal was released to DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on June 20, 2003 as a Region 1 widescreen DVD and to Blu-ray on June 28, 2010 by Paramount Home Entertainment as a multi-region widescreen Blu-ray.

Reception

Box office

Raw Deal released in the United States on June 6, 1986 and made $5,438,978 in its opening weekend.[7] It went on to gross a total of $16,209,459 in the United States.[4]

Though the film made a mild profit at the box office, its earnings were a disappointment.[8]

Critical response

Roger Ebert gave the film 1.5 stars out of four and wrote, "This plot is so simple (and has been told so many times before), that perhaps the most amazing achievement of 'Raw Deal' is its ability to screw it up. This movie didn't just happen to be a mess; the filmmakers had to work to make it so confusing."[9] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film "isn't exactly Oscar material. It does nothing for the cause of nonviolence. It will warm the hearts of gun lobbyists everywhere, and its final body count may be even higher than that in Mr. Stallone's 'Cobra.' Yet 'Raw Deal' somehow manages to be measurably less offensive. At times, it's almost funny — intentionally."[10] Todd McCarthy of Variety reported, "Comic book crime meller suffers from an irredeemably awful script, and even director John Irvin's engaging sense of how absurd the proceedings are can't work an alchemist's magic."[11] Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Sheila Benson began, "Has it come to this? That we can feel vaguely cheered that Raw Deal (citywide), where the bodies again pile up like cordwood, is a better made movie than Cobra?" However, she praised Schwarzenegger, saying that his strength as an actor is "not that he can toss grown men over ceiling beams, but that he has a vein of sweetness and self-deprecation that no amount of mayhem can obliterate ... it has shone from him since Pumping Iron, it has allowed him to surmount silly and unwise pieces of action (such as the drunk scenes in one of the Conans and here), and even his own awkwardness as an actor."[12] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 1 star out of 4 and noted that it had "essentially the same story" as Cobra, "but it is told with so many superfluous characters that we're never really sure whose side a few key people are on. Needless to say, in a film filled with punch-outs, we very quickly don't care."[13] Paul Attanasio of The Washington Post dismissed the film as "a mostly tedious, cheaply made shoot-em-up" that "recycles the clichés that have long been the cud of television cop dramas."[14] Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called it "reprehensible and enjoyable, the kind of movie that makes you feel brain dead after two minutes—after which point you're ready to laugh at its mixture of trashiness, violence, and startlingly silly crude humor."[15]

Raw Deal holds a rating of 29% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 14 reviews.[16] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[17]

See also

References
  1. "Raw Deal (1986)". British Board of Film Classification. July 31, 1986. Retrieved January 27, 2019.
  2. Friendly, David T. (Nov 16, 1985). "DE LAURENTIIS REJOINS THE RANKS--AT EMBASSY: DE LAURENTIIS: EMBASSY". Los Angeles Times. p. e1.
  3. KNOEDELSEDER, WILLIAM K, Jr (Aug 30, 1987). "De Laurentiis PRODUCER'S PICTURE DARKENS". Los Angeles Times. p. 1.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. "Raw Deal (1986) – Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved March 28, 2018.
  5. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091828/trivia
  6. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091828/locations?ref_=tt_dt_dt
  7. "Schwarzenegger: Action Star Flexes More Than Muscle In Effort To Overcome He-man Image". Sun Sentinel. Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  8. Hunt, Dennis (1986-10-03). "Schwarzenegger Vs. Stallone: 'Deal' Strikes First". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  9. Ebert, Roger (June 6, 1986). "Raw Deal movie review". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved December 21, 2019.
  10. Canby, Vincent (June 6, 1986). "Film: Schwarzenegger's 'Raw Deal'". The New York Times. C5.
  11. McCarthy, Todd (June 11, 1986). "Film Reviews: Raw Deal". Variety. 14.
  12. Benson, Sheila (1986-06-06). "Movie Review : A 'Raw Deal' For Audience, Cast And Crew". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-12-01.
  13. Siskel, Gene (June 6, 1986). "'Raw Deal': The title says a lot about confusing plot". Chicago Tribune. Section 7, page K.
  14. Attanasio, Paul (June 7, 1986). "'Raw Deal' Arnold as Rambuffo". The Washington Post. D5.
  15. Kael, Pauline (June 30, 1986). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker. 51.
  16. "Raw Deal (1986)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  17. "CinemaScore". Archived from the original on February 6, 2018.
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