Raw Deal is a 1986 American action film directed by John Irvin and written by Gary DeVore and Norman Wexler, from a story by Luciano Vincenzoni & Sergio Donati. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kathryn Harrold, Darren McGavin and Sam Wanamaker. In the film, Harry Shannon, an elderly FBI agent, recruits Mark Kaminski, an ex-FBI agent turned Sheriff to destroy a mafia organization.
Raw Deal was released in North America on June 6, 1986 and grossed $16.2 million in the US against its $8–10 million budget.
Filming
Filming took place in October 1985 in Chicago, Illinois, Gallatin, Tennessee, and Wilmington, North Carolina.
Reception
Box office
Raw Deal released in the United States on June 6, 1986, and made $5.4 million in its opening weekend. It went on to gross a total of $16.2 million in the United States.
Critical response
Roger Ebert gave the film 1.5 stars out of four and wrote, "This plot is so simple (and has been told so many times before), that perhaps the most amazing achievement of Raw Deal is its ability to screw it up. This movie didn't just happen to be a mess; the filmmakers had to work to make it so confusing." Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film "isn't exactly Oscar material. It does nothing for the cause of nonviolence. It will warm the hearts of gun lobbyists everywhere, and its final body count may be even higher than that in Mr. Stallone's Cobra. Yet Raw Deal somehow manages to be measurably less offensive. At times, it's almost funny — intentionally." Todd McCarthy of Variety reported, "Comic book crime meller suffers from an irredeemably awful script, and even director John Irvin's engaging sense of how absurd the proceedings are can't work an alchemist's magic." Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Sheila Benson began, "Has it come to this? That we can feel vaguely cheered that Raw Deal (citywide), where the bodies again pile up like cordwood, is a better made movie than Cobra?" However, she praised Schwarzenegger, saying that his strength as an actor is "not that he can toss grown men over ceiling beams, but that he has a vein of sweetness and self-deprecation that no amount of mayhem can obliterate ... it has shone from him since Pumping Iron, it has allowed him to surmount silly and unwise pieces of action (such as the drunk scenes in one of the Conans and here), and even his own awkwardness as an actor." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 1 star out of 4 and noted that it had "essentially the same story" as Cobra, "but it is told with so many superfluous characters that we're never really sure whose side a few key people are on. Needless to say, in a film filled with punch-outs, we very quickly don't care." Paul Attanasio of The Washington Post dismissed the film as "a mostly tedious, cheaply made shoot-em-up" that "recycles the clichés that have long been the cud of television cop dramas." Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called it "reprehensible and enjoyable, the kind of movie that makes you feel brain dead after two minutes—after which point you're ready to laugh at its mixture of trashiness, violence, and startlingly silly crude humor."
John Nubbin reviewed Raw Deal for Different Worlds magazine and stated that "Although the picture begins with a set of great hooks which drag the audience in immediately and completely, it isn't long before the twists in logic start to ruin everyone's good time. Coupling this with the needlessly foolish villains, the totally inept marksman they hire to protect them, and the godawful bits of story such as Schwarzenegger going to kill a man simply to get in good with the mobs, or his healing of the sick in the movie's incredibly maudlin ending, you have just another ready-mix, non-varying formula movie, the kind people are, luckily, going to see less and less of as the years drag by."
Raw Deal holds a score of 31% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 16 reviews with an average rating of 4.6/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 44 out of 100 based on 12 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
See also
- List of American films of 1986
- Arnold Schwarzenegger filmography