Raw Deal


cop: (staring at the bloody wreckage of a bar) "What do you think happened here?"
other cop: "I think somebody got very pissed off."


release year: 1986
genre: action
viewing setting: home DVD 8/22/22 and 2/21/16 and 2/27/14 and 5/26/09 and 10/17/06 and 1/17/01 plus many other times before that

synopsis: A tough ex-FBI agent goes undercover to infiltrate the mob.

impressions: This is basic action fare. It's got Arnold back when he was huge and had a really thick accent, plus an assortment of fights, stunts, tough-talking bad guys, and the like. The plot isn't much, nor does it pretend to be. It's just Arnold being cocky, tough, and mowing down anyone who gets in his way. Hell, he drives a towtruck through a bar, with guys jumping out of the way saying "Daaaamn!" They don't make 'em like this anymore, and that's a shame.

body count: 34 (21 of them thanks to Arnold)

Roger Ebert (R.I.P.) doesn't pay attention alert: Roger wonders in his review why the mob woman slept with Arnold, but obviously he didn't pick up on the fact that Arnold never slept with the woman, instead pretending to pass out so that she could go through his wallet and unwittingly feed false information to the bad guys. Roger also didn't understand who the main bad guy was, since he identified Robert Davi as that when in fact Davi was the 3rd in command, really no more than a henchman. Roger also wonders why the bad guys were going to shoot Arnold's friend in the cemetery; he apparently wasn't paying attention to how bad guy Robert Davi had learned Arnold's true identity and that of his friend, and set up the cemetery thing to force Arnold to show his true colors. Is it just me, or are these the sorts of things that a famed movie critic would pick up on? Is it possible that he wasn't actually paying attention? Look, I know that this movie isn't Oscar material, but if you're going to point out its shortcomings, at least ge them right instead of making stuff up.

acting: Arnold fulfills what was expected of him back in the mid-1980s: he beats up and shoots a lot of people, and it's fun. Robert Davi is good as the #2 bad guy. Darren McGavin is Arnold's FBI friend.

final word: Solid old-school 1980s Arnold action.

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