Raw Deal (1986 film)

Raw Deal is a 1986 American action film directed by John Irvin, from a story by Luciano Vincenzoni & Sergio Donati and script by Gary DeVore & Norman Wexler. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kathryn Harrold, Darren McGavin and Sam Wanamaker. In the film, Harry Shanon, an elderly FBI agent, recruits Mark Kaminski, an FBI agent turned small-town sheriff, to destroy a mafia organization.

Raw Deal was released in North America on June 6, 1986 to negative reviews from critics. The film grossed $16.2 million in the US against its $8–10 million budget.

Plot
On December 16, 1985, in a remote wooded cabin, a mob informant is under protection by the FBI. They are ambushed by a hit squad who brutally slaughter the bodyguards and the witness. One of the agents killed is Blair Shannon, son of FBI Agent Harry Shannon, who vows revenge.

After capturing a man posing as a motorcycle cop, small-town sheriff Mark Kaminski goes home to his alcoholic wife Amy, who resents what their lives have been reduced to; Kaminski once worked for the FBI, but five years ago he fiercely beat a suspect who sexually assaulted and murdered a young girl. Kaminski was given the option to "resign or be prosecuted" by ambitious prosecutor Marvin Baxter, who is now Special Federal Prosecutor heading up a committee investigating the dealings of Luigi Patrovita, the strongest of the Chicago Outfit Dons.

Due to a leak within the FBI ranks causing their agents to be killed, Shannon calls for outside help and recruits Kaminski for an unsanctioned assignment to infiltrate and dismantle Patrovita's organization. Kaminski fakes his own death in a chemical plant explosion and poses as convicted felon Joseph P. Brenner. He manages to get an audience with Patrovita's right-hand man Paulo Rocca, and convinces them of his worth by harassing Martin Lamanski, a rival mob boss who is trying to move in on his former boss Patrovita's territory. While at Patrovita's casino, hidden in a basement level of a high class hotel, he makes the acquaintance of Monique, who works for Rocca's top lieutenant Max Keller.

Kaminski continues to work his way into the good graces of the Patrovita family, including devising a plan that recovers $100 million of heroin and cash seized by the feds from one of Patrovita's hideouts and simultaneously assisting in Lamanski's assassination. Keller is not convinced that 'Brenner' is who he says and manages to find proof of the deception, showing Kaminski's photo to a police informant who previously arrested the real Brenner. The leak the FBI has been looking for is revealed to be Baxter, who is forced to stay close to Patrovita. Kaminski accompanies Keller to a cemetery for a hit job, but discovers that the target is Shannon, forcing Kaminski to blow his cover and kill Keller. In the ensuing shootout, Shannon is severely wounded and crippled.

Kaminski escapes with Monique's assistance. He tells her to go to the airport and wait for him. After gathering an arsenal of firearms, Kaminski raids one of Patrovita's gravel pits, killing everyone and stealing a large amount of drug money. He then sets off for Patrovita's casino, where he embarks on a killing spree, single-handedly wiping out all his soldiers, including the men directly responsible for the murder of Blair and his fellow FBI agents. Rocca and Patrovita retreat to a back room, but Rocca is cut down in a barrage of gunfire. Patrovita flees into an office pleading for his life, but Kaminski mercilessly guns him down. On his way out, he encounters a whimpering Baxter who tries to talk his way out by apologizing for what happened five years ago. Kaminski responds to Baxter by saying that because of him a lot of people are dead, and now it's his turn and offers him a gun with the same line Baxter gave him five years earlier: "Resign, or be prosecuted. Any way you want it." Kaminski starts to walk off, and when Baxter attempts to shoot him, Kaminski turns and shoots Baxter dead in self-defense. Later when Chicago detective Baker arrives with other officers, they discover Baxter among the dead, eventually surmising that he had been the leak. After driving to the airport, Kaminski hands a duffel bag containing $250,000 in cash to Monique and puts her on a chartered plane, telling her she is free and can start a new life with no obligations to anyone. As Monique's plane taxis away, a helicopter carrying detective Baker lands near Kaminski. Baker reveals to Kaminski that he'd always suspected Kaminski was a law enforcement officer.

Kaminski is later reinstated with the FBI and is reunited with a pregnant Amy. Kaminski visits a despondent Shannon, who refuses to undergo physical therapy. In order to thank Shannon for helping him, Kaminski asks him to be his child's godfather in exchange for completing his therapy, which Shannon accepts.

Production
Shooting took place in October 1985 in Chicago, Illinois, and Wilmington, North Carolina.

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. Its earnings were considered a disappointment.

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."

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.