Le coup du siècle

"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.

I perfectly understand the impulse to satirize Cold War nuclear dealings. How do you work for peace by building missiles, Ronald? And released at the mad height of Reaganomical autocracy, this muddy blotch on the scintillating filmography of a great modern director aspires to be a sharp, shrewd, and audacious satire of the global arms race, but it rarely seizes me, or seemingly any audience, on any considerable comic or intellectual level. The movie starts promisingly enough with a commercial mocking the arms industry, a promo for the Luckup Industries "Peacemaker," a fighter drone guaranteed to "preserve our way of life," with shots of families and children in the background. There's a stroke of Dr. Strangelove as the company executives thrash out promotional schemes for the plane, but the fanatical boss wants a more hard-hitting ad crusade, something like, "Why do I fly it? On account of it kills."

While the film plainly expects this brand of send-up to be shrewd and slashing, the film never takes any of it very far at all. Most frequently, the calculated gags seem too solemn. Not even Chevy Chase's peddling of military wares is ever very funny, though a booby-trapped urinal is clearly intended to be. Yes, Chevy Chase. And Wallace Shawn and Richard Libertini, all hilarious people. Libertini plays an immensely wealthy arms merchant who explains how recent changes to federal law not only legalize bribes to foreign dictators, but make those bribes tax deductible.

But no one concerned appears to have had any clue where the film's tone should've been pitched. The black comedy approach is merely dealt with from time to time. The scathing digs at the arms industry are haphazard. The humor varies from the relatively keen to the dumb to the utterly absent. What is Weaver's character designed to be anyway? The widow of the Luckup sales rep whose deal is successfully taken over by Chase, one moment she is a matchless fraud, the next she's a brokenhearted widow, and thereafter that she's pursuing Chase and surrendering herself to the General.

And Gregory Hines, an ex-fighter pilot now undergoing a religious crisis of conscience. After years of capitalizing off the wholesaling of death, he out of the blue finds religious conviction. Is this meant as a parody of born-again fanatics? Or is it just a narrative expedient to get us to the movie's utterly boring climactic warfare? Whatever the case may be, both actors are significantly wasted in their distracted roles. I would've been delighted to see this one and leave calling it unluckily misread or gravely undervalued, but the thing's an utter muddle most of the time.

The previous very negative commentaries: I wonder what they expected? If they expected a "typical" Chevy Chase movie, where he is the star of the show, and don't you forget it, then ... this is not the movie.

This is more along the lines of "Flying High", when there is no one "star" of the file who hogs the limelight. In this movie, the gags and clever lines are more evenly distributed. In my mind, this makes for a funnier movie.

Deal of the Century is for those with an appreciation of the absurd. A dry, dark comedy, and an ironic portrayal of 1980s American (Reaganite) values. The film is a humorous, critical portrait of the hypocrisy behind Ronald Reagan's deadly cold war shenanigans. Its a political comedy -- very well directed by William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist). It is also well performed and photographed. Chevy Chase is perfectly cast as a cynical arms dealer. And the late, great, Gregory Hines, as his partner, disenchanted with the arms business and suddenly filled with pathos, desperately and hilariously turns from heavy-weapons to Jesus. It is not a perfectly plotted or written film, but it strives to intelligently portray its era.

Eddie Muntz is a pervasive black market arms dealer who after a missed sale, meets a fellow salesman Harold in the same field for the US Luckup Corporation while in South America. After he commits suicide with the stress of waiting by the phone for the government dictator to ring him back to complete the deal. Eddie answers and takes over the deal which involves a new high-tech, non-pilot plane known as the Peacemaker. Soon enough everybody wants to get on this multi-million dollar deal. Eddie's work pal Ray has found god, and he's doing his best trying to keep him on the job and Harold's icy widow Catherine wants her share of the prize.

William Friedkin's "Deal Of the Century" is somewhere in between a black comedy and frank pot-shot on the international arms trade. It never distinguishes itself either way, but I think that's the point. Especially how nervously bizarre this turns out to be. I certainly enjoyed this misunderstood satirical item on an interestingly flavorers topic and the sardonically dark humour was neat treat to the senses. Those looking for a laugh-out-loud affair will only get humour that's rather broadly downbeat in tone, despite how over-blown they turn out to be. While, it didn't constantly make me laugh, it got some grimaces out of me. It can feel like a Chevy Chase vehicle most of the time, as the rest of the cast do pale in comparison. That's not their fault, because their characters don't have the material to lift them out of Chase's shadow. Chase is one of my favourite iconic 80's comedians and he immediately fits the role with his causally dry and quick-witted personality. Sigourney Weaver is there to look good in her steely firebrand performance and Gregory Hines doesn't look too interested throughout. There's a short comic performance by Wallace Shawn too.

The freshly ammo-packed story by Paul Bickerman is complicatedly knotty and obvious with its attacks. Creeping in were oddball situations and a surrealistic air on the worrying subject at hand. The snappy script works up a creative novelty, smearing it with sneering gags, spicy irony and that of Chase's slyly gruff voice-over narration to string scenes together. Super weapons to ensure peace, nicely put. As for William Friedkin's direction, well at first I didn't even know that this was on his resume. His style is extremely random and kinetic in just what's going to happen, but this unfocused mark goes on to morph its way into the premise. The interestingly high octane climax springs to mind. The production does look cheap, but the sweeping musical score creates the right vibe and there's strikingly framed camera-work. Explosions make there way in and the effects for the plane look rather hokey when its up in the air, but decent enough when on the ground.

While, I don't see too much love for this offering. It isn't significantly great and it can be clumsy, but I don't see it as a piece of absurd garbage that it's made out to be. Simply a delightful, if farcical romp that kept me highly entertained.