Le Contrat

I have been soaking up a lot of vicarious aggression lately with Van Damme, Stallone, and Ahnuld. I bet a lot of Arnie's fans have missed this little gem. No, we don't look for quality here, but Schwarzenegger does a credible job of acting and he keeps throwing out these funny lines that keep you in stitches.

Nothing original here - failed FBI agent, now small town Sheriff (think Bruce Willis in Hostage or Striking Distance, Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone, or many others who are out in the cold because of their screw-ups or someone's evil deed - called to infiltrate the mob and bring them down.

You know Arnie's going to get the job done with muscle and firepower. He even manages a little romance - damn little - with Kathryn Harrold.

Paybacks are hell!

'Raw Deal' is for me somewhat of a tough film to rate and review. It is not a great, or even a good, film and is as close to ridiculous as Arnold Schwarznegger films get. At the same time, it's difficult to be too hard on 'Raw Deal' because there is some entertainment value.

Let's start with the good things. Schwarznegger is not the greatest of actors and never has been, but he has always had a hugely charismatic screen presence, a larger-than-life likability and a knack for action sequences. One gets all of this from his performance in 'Raw Deal', even with some expressionless and moments where he does struggle with lines he is immensely watchable and it is very vintage Schwarznegger. Generally it is the cast that come off best. Robert Davi is a rightly hiss-able bad guy and Kathryn Harrold has charm and sass. Sam Wanamaker and Paul Shenar make much of relatively little, they bring colourful menace to their stereotypical roles despite (particularly Shenar) being underused.

There are a few fun one-liners here and there and some excitement in the action. Can't say that on the whole as individual components the script and action were great, but the entertainment was there. The soundtrack is cool too and the scenery has atmosphere.

On the other hand, the story is not just ridiculous (even by Schwarznegger film standards) and generic but has too many scenes that feel like filler and either drag the story out or confuse it. A few nice one-liners here and there, but the script is quite weak and there is a lot of unintentional humour and next to no care developing the characters in a film littered with stereotypes (only Kaminski has any kind of development).

Action-wise, 'Raw Deal' is hardly amateurish and has some exciting moments but too much of it is too routine and a huge amount of suspension of disbelief is needed. Although the ending is certainly memorable, more so than most of the stuff before it, it's for all the wrong reasons. Visually, it has a low-budget made-for-TV-production-like look to it. Ed Lauter is pretty wasted and while the direction is competent it's never more than that.

In conclusion, watchable but doesn't feel cooked all the way through. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Don't be angry with me for only awarding "Raw Deal" 5 stars out of 10. It's a 'strong, almost a 6' 5, not a 'weak, barely above a 4' 5. If that makes any sense.

I think that part of the problem is that I saw this after I saw "Terminator" and "Commando", and it was a bit of a let-down. (And I might have been suffering from a bit of "Schwarzenegger-overexposure".) Arnold is a bit wasted here. It's as if someone mistakenly cast him in a role meant for someone like Chuck Norris. Let's face it, this is a smaller scale movie with a seemingly smaller budget; Dolph Lundgren or Rutger Hauer or Micheal Biehn or even that guy from "Eddie And The Cruisers" could have filled in for the S-man in this movie and you would hardly have noticed the difference, except for a few one-liners. Not to mention the director for "Raw Deal" seemed to be nowhere near Cameron's or Lester's class. Same thing goes for the cast (with all respect to Darren McGavin and Robert Davi). Kathryn Harrold is not a substitute for Linda Hamilton. She's OK, but she's a Ford Taurus to Hamilton's Corvette Stingray.

There are pacing problems, too. The screenwriter felt the need to include several filler sequences that are meant to advance the plot and fill in back story and give the other cast members something to do. But most of these sequences are pretty lackluster: a fistfight in a women's clothing store goes nowhere; a romantic confrontation between Davi and Harrold leaves no lasting impact (though it does let Harrold get off a good put-down line); and the 10 minute car chase scene where a crime boss winds up hamburger is an exercise in by-the-numbers padding if there ever was one (good sound design, though).

But the last 20 minutes serves as a payoff to the first part of the film, and it is basically one long bullet-fest. Arnold basically shoots everything short of LAWs and RPGs at the bad guys, and they obligingly miss with all their shots and fall over and die. None of this is staged with anything like the panache of the firefights in "Commando" or the desperate high speed run-and-gun highway fights in "Terminator". It's all very meat-and-potatoes stuff that wouldn't have be out of place in a typical Cannon/Golan-Globus production. But there's plenty of it, and the S-man is appropriately grim and indestructible, and any fan will be satisfied once the final bad guy goes down in the final hail of bullets.

After 3 viewings, I still don't understand why no one can hit the huge, slow-moving white guy when they shoot at him, but it's his movie, so I'll just attribute it to Arnold's penchant for bringing a Browning Automatic Rifle to a revolver fight, and let it pass.

And I don't discount this movie just because it was an Arnold vehicle - I felt that his follow-up "The Running Man" was a return to form (although still not as good as "Terminator" and "Commando").

Anyway, "Raw Deal" doesn't place in the top 5 (or even 10) Arnold films, but any Schwarzenegger completist will want to have it, and will probably find much to enjoy. And fans of "Crime Story" and gangster films in general will also find this to their liking.

Arnold at his peak as a one-man wrecking crew as he demolishes a crime family single-handed. It reminds me of the Stallone film where Rambo takes on Russia in Afghanistan. This film has good acting though, and the ever-evil Robert Davi at his slimy best. The shoot-out at the gravel pit with "Satisfaction" playing is a classic. And don't forget the classic line :"You should not drink and bake"!

I own this movie. Well, I own most of Arnold's movies. But I've only watched this one 3 or 4 times over the last decade. It's not a great movie although I think I enjoy it a little bit more with each viewing. The flick does have its moments. I like the interplay between Max and Brenner. And Arnold plays a very cool Mafia-like guy. The ending -- if you could even call it that -- is terrible. Did the script say, "Insert ending here"? Nevertheless, I liked the action even if it was corny at times. And the style of the movie grows on you with each viewing. I give it a 6/10 for been slightly more enjoyable than average.