Review of Raw Deal (1986) by Patrick E — 08 Feb 2011

By the time Raw Deal was made in 1986, Arnold Schwarzenegger was already fast becoming one of the world's biggest action stars. Raw Deal did nothing to harm that reputation as despite being nothing more than a silly 80's actioner it was still an entertaining film that yet proved the sheer screen presence of the man from Austria.

The plot is about as unoriginal as they come; Mark Kaminsky is now a small time sheriff after being kicked out of the FBI for beating up a child rapist. The son of an FBI chief is killed while protecting a witness due to give evidence against a Chicago mafia boss which leads to said chief hiring Kaminsky in a personal vendetta to get him to go under cover and take down the mafia family. Kaminsky accepts as it's the only way to get himself back into the FBI.

There is absolutely nothing new or original about Raw Deal, instead it's everything you would expect from an 80's action film starring Schwarzenegger. The setup is perfect for plenty of action set pieces but surprisingly they are actually few and far between until the latter half of the film. When they do come, it's basically Arnie kicking ass as he morphs into his typical one man army role. There is nothing wrong with action scenes, all are entertaining and particularly the final 30 minutes which is great fun but the main problem with Raw Deal is the plot; it's all over the place. Kaminsky seems to know an awful lot of information about the mafia family without doing any research which leads to a convoluted plot that gets a little silly at times. Saying this though I knew that Raw Deal wouldn't exactly have the greatest plotline and it would mainly be about the action but dragged down what could have been a good film to being an average one.

Raw Deal is your typical 80's Arnie film, good entertainment with some nice action but a poor story full of plot holes. If you're looking for mindless entertainment then you can't go wrong but it's certainly not one of Arnie's more memorable roles.