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"Deal Of The Century" was director William Friedkin's attempt to create a "black comedy" satirizing the armaments industry, in much the same way as Stanley Kubrick satirized the nuclear balance of power in "Dr. Strangelove." Unfortunately, it falls short of that ambitious goal.

The movie concerns an arms dealer, Eddie Muntz (Chevy Chase), who gets an opportunity to take over the sale of an ultra-advanced pilotless combat aircraft to a dumb South American dictator when the original salesperson dies unexpectedly.

Friedkin clearly thought he was making a great movie here, in the way he diligently employed many of the same elements as "Strangelove": verisimilitude in the names of arms companies and weapon systems, blatant phallic symbolism, sex-obsessed characters, sight gags, and a basically bizarre, unreal plot.

Unfortunately, all Friedkin ends up doing is showing that he is no Kubrick (at least not after "The French Connection" anyway), Chevy Chase is no Peter Sellers, and in general those associated with this movie just aren't in the same league as those who made "Strangelove." Many of the lines and sight gags just aren't that funny, and the satirical point about the armaments industry gets lost in a meandering plot with an irrelevant subplot about Muntz' romance with the dead salesman's widow (Sigourney Weaver). An actual romance tended to dilute the satirical effectiveness of the sexual obsessions of the major characters.

Eddie Muntz (Chevy Chase) is an amoral small-time weapons dealer. He's in San Miguel selling real and unreal weapons to both rebels and the military dictatorship. Ray Kasternak (Gregory Hines) is his work partner. He's approached by Catherine DeVoto (Sigourney Weaver). Her late husband sold drone fighters from American military contractor Luckup and she wants his commissions from the sale. The contract was canceled but the company recruits Ed to sell the Peacemaker drones even though it had a terrible demonstration in front of the US military.

This is good material for an interesting satire. The first fifteen minutes is good satire fun. After that, the story has to take over and the characters have to take over. Sadly, I don't care about these characters or their story. The drone is a great predictor of future war but even that is not enough. It's a long slow decline after a promising start.

It seems like everyone's opinion on this movie is evenly divided. People either love it or hate it. Personally, I am not a Chevy Chase fan by any stretch of the imagination. But I like many of William Friedkin's films so I wanted to give this a chance and went in without too many preconceptions.

It obviously can't stand up to a comparison to DR. STRANGELOVE as a few here have done. However, it still remains a fairly on-target, unflattering satire of the weapons industry and by extrapolation, other mass production industries that love to sell the government and public crap product cosmetically hyped as the next great answer to all their fears and desires, product that ends up being useless or obsolete within a year (if it even works properly in the first place). There are some pretty funny scenes sprinkled throughout and I was pleasantly surprised through the whole film how much dark, subversively funny jabs Friedkin gets away with. Especially in a big studio movie.

There's one scene in particular that makes the film well worth seeing --Gregory Hines (I believe it was him) gets into a verbal altercation with another extremely hotheaded driver (a maniacal Tony Plana) (over a fender bender? it's been a while since I've seen it) -- the verbal sparring quickly escalates into a life-threatening situation and the emotional dynamics the two actors bring to the scene is scarily believable while remaining extremely funny. This scene alone provides a microcosmic metaphor for the provocations of nations going to war and perfectly illustrates the pointless absurdity of aggressive behaviour in general. Also of note, it's great to see the underrated Vince Edwards in a large supporting role as the ruthless air weapons manufacturer.

DEAL OF THE CENTURY is never less than amusing and has some extremely funny sequences -- much better than many of these IMDb reviews would lead you to believe.

If you work in certain areas in the defense business, you will be sure that some one who worked in the business did the script. Some of the most outrageous incidents in the film are the most true to life. It may be that you have to have some professional insight to appreciate it fully. It's like a Dilbert cartoon.

I saw this when it first came out and really enjoyed it. I was just a little kid at the time, but I enjoyed the story and actors work. I just watched it again recently and have to admit, it's dated, the FX are horrible, BUT I still enjoyed the performances and story.

If you're not a fan of the cast and can't get past really bad "special" effects, then you'll probably hate it. But if you like any of the cast, and watch it for their performances and a kinda cheesy story, you'll probably find it entertaining.

The cast is the only reason for really watching this movie.