Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Bad/awesome flixxx review: Raw Deal (1986)
"The only way you'll ever end up lying next to me, Max, is if we're run down by the same car." - Monique
"Joseph P. Brenner. What's the "P" stand for?" - Cop
"Pussy" - Kaminsky
"Max, if you're the best there is, the wheel would never have been invented." - Kaminsky
"You should not drink and bake!" - Kaminsky
Another $1 purchase in Kansas City, this one being a (somewhat?) rare Schwarzenegger flick heavily overshadowed by the flicks he did before and after this one (COMMANDO and PREDATOR). There is nothing really special at all about this flick, its just your typical action flick, however I really enjoy these overshadowed often forgotten ones more than those that get totally chopped up by network tv and shown a gajillion times. Also this one has Arnie playing a down and out ex FBI agent who has to settle as a sheriff in a hick NC town. Double plus it stars Ralphie's dad from A CHRISTMAS STORY. You know him, you love him (or hate him according to if we're talking about movies or politics or not) the last action hero himself stars in RAW DEAL!!!!
Lovable, huggable Arnie plays Mark Kaminsky, an FBI agent who got canned by this worm of a District Attorney type guy on a witchhunt to clear the department of "loose cannons". Kaminsky gets relocated to Bumfuck, NC where he spends his days chasing blue light bandits on motorcycles in his jeep cherokee. Also his wife is an alcoholic who berates him day in and day out for bringing her to the sticks. Luckily for him in the beginning of the movie there's some kind of stake out going on, but the bad guys know about it, bust in and fucking annihilate a bunch of feds. We're talking full on bloodpacks exploding from chests and legs and headshots. Its a pretty grim scene to begin with and sets dudes up to yell "YES!" a lot right off the bat. When I say "Luckily for him" I mean that his old boss (Ralphie's Dad) 's son gets blown away in the ordeal.
This is just the opportunity Kaminsky needs to get out of his shitty situation. Ralphie's dad asks him to pull off this mission secret style, meaning no help from the feds, the pigs, nobody. If he does this, then he'll hire him back to the FBI. BUT one other thing--- he has to kill himself off. So Arnie drives his rig into a oil plant and blows the whole thing sky high. Death of Kaminsky, Birth of "Joseph P. Brenner". So Kaminsky/Brenner goes straight into pissing off these Chicago mobster dudes. First by driving a backhoe into their meth lab or coke den and then by bigshotting it around in one of their casinos. He offers up his services and snide remarks their main bodyguard guy Max igniting a feud betwixt them that lasts the remainder of the flick.
He also semi-seduces Max's girlfriend Monique who in the beginning tries to get the dish on him for Max, but then sort of falls for him. The reason the feds can't get to these mobsters is that there is a leak in the system. The leak turns out to be the same scumbag who got Kaminsky canned in the first place. Kaminsky/Brenner/Arnie keeps working his way up the ladder of the mobsters sort of like the guy in WISEGUYS or DONNIE BRASCO. Max is never convinced and finds evidence from the og pig who caught the real Brenner down in Florida. So he tattletales on Brenner and sets him up for a hit at a cemetary. The hit turns out to be on Ralphie's dad, and Brenner yells out and blows his cover. At the last second they blow away Max but Ralphie's dad is wounded. Arnie wants to help, but Ralphie's dad is like, "get outta here, if I die, its gonna take you a year to explain all this shit." So Arnie goes for his guns.
Ha! This is the part everyone's been waiting for for over an hour. Arnie walks into his closet and grabs a huge bag of insane machine guns. These are all Ramboed out with HUGE shells and look like they were leftovers from the COMMANDO shoot. It really doesn't make any sense that he'd be allowed to own these guns. But its still awesome. So he drives to a quarry(?) and kicks the windshield out of this Buick Le Sabre and SERIOUSLY theres a close up where he pops a tape in the tape deck and "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones comes on. And he starts mowing everyone down. Just whipping doughnuts in the quarry and not even aiming. Just emptying full clips. Then he goes to a casino and the same thing. Mowing everyone down. Kind of like the 80s PUNISHER flick with Dolph Lundgren. Then he kills the one guy, and then the main guy. Then he sees the leak guy and tells him he has to resign or be arrested. Basically the same thing that guy told him so long ago. The guy tries to shoot him, and he mows him down too. Then he gives that chick a bunch of bread probably cause he felt bad that he couldn't bang her cause he was already married. YEAH RIGHT. Who know why he gave her that bread?? He didn't owe her shit really. What a dumbass. Anyway, fast forward a bit, and Kaminsky is visiting Ralphie's dad at physical therapy. Ralphie's dad is crippled and he'll walk again if he'll only try. But he's being a big baby, and here's the sappy touching moment: Kaminsky tells Ralphie's dad that he's gotta try hard for the love he had for his son. So he tries and takes a few baby steps and they hug. Freeze frame. The End. Was it bad? Yeah. Was it awesome? Yeah, but i like the rarer flicks. Its like THE EVIL THAT MEN DO with Charles Bronson. You've never heard of it, but its just as good or better than some of his more known stuff. Well, I don't know if I'd go that far with this one. But it's worth a stony afternoon for sure. Cheers.
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