Kicking Ass with Alan Trehern

Every time I see a De Laurentiis produced film, I realize that I probably would have been best friends with this guy. Not only could I have hung out with his grand-daughter Giada, but I would have been on set for movies like Dune, Once Upon a Crime..., Conan the Destroyer, Maximum Overdrive, and Army of Darkness. Today, however, we see the De Laurentiis produced film Raw Deal as one movie that may not live up to the epicness of the before-mentioned, but still fits in soundly among that family of films.

Raw Deal (1986)
Directed by John Irvin
Former FBI-agent Mark Kaminsky (Arnold) takes on a case to infiltrate a volatile mob war. Leaving his dead-beat wife behind and not looking back, Kaminsky becomes Joseph P. Brenner, who starts working for one of the mob bosses involved in the gang war. He's under the supervision of FBI veteran Harry Shannon (McGavin, the Old Man from A Christmas Story), but the most amazing part of the mob infiltration is that is takes less than 48 hours.

The action is a little sparse in this flick, with some general fist-fights and two epic gun-fights at the end of the movie. A majority of the film is spent talking about mob stuff and fears of infiltration (joke's on you!); they break into a police station at one point, and that seems to be the only illegal thing this group of mobsters can do through the entirety of the film.
Schwarzenegger's dialogue proves stale. 85 percent of his spoken word is one-liners, which I usually adore, but none lived up to my high-standard of one-liners. If you're a fan of GTAIII for the PS2, you'll probably really enjoy this film as it had many of the themes, stereotypes and action you would find in the video game, as well as some similar locales. So take that into consideration...

Raw Deal is a pretty awesome but run-of-the-mill action movie. This would be considered "comfort food" for those hankerin' for some needless violence, 80s fashion and Schwarzenegger's cue card memorization. If I were to rate this film by a number of thrown grenades, I'd launch 3 out of 5. Then maybe torch a pedestrian and chainsaw someone's motorcycle. See you in March 2012!!! Trehern out.