Raw Deal

1986

De Laurentiis Entertainment Group

Directed by John Irvin

Produced by Martha Schmacher

Screenplay by Gary DeVore and Norman Wexler

Story by Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Donati

For a change I’ll get right to the point and tell you guys exactly why I like RAW DEAL so much. For a considerable amount of screen time, Arnold Schwarzenegger is going around wearing tailored Armani suits with slicked back hair, trading insults with badguy Robert Davi while smoking foot-long Cuban cigars and playing baccarat while flirting with Kathryn Harrold in hidden underground Detroit gambling casinos. To the point where I honestly think he looked on this movie as an audition for him to play James Bond.  RAW DEAL isn’t a movie mentioned when Schwarzenegger movies are discussed and that’s a shame because RAW DEAL is a lot of fun. He isn’t required to be a one-man army until near the end of the movie unlike a lot of his movies where he’s shooting up folks from start to finish. I think RAW DEAL gets forgotten because the next year he would star in “Predator” and that was when his movie career would really take off.

Mark Kaminsky (Arnold Schwarzenegger) was once one of the FBI’s best agents. But he beat a suspect who molested and murdered a girl, nearly to death and federal prosecutor Marvin Baxter (Joe Regalbuto) forced him to resign. The only job Kaminsky could get was as the sheriff of a small town. His wife (Blanche Baker) is an unhappy alcoholic who cannot adjust to small town life and Kaminsky has no idea how to fix his marriage.

An opportunity presents itself when FBI Chief Harry Shannon (Darren McGavin) contacts Kaminsky. Shannon’s son was killed while protecting an informant who was going to testify against mobster Luigi Patrovita (Sam Wanamaker.) Shannon wants Kaminsky to join him on a secret mission of revenge. If Kaminsky will infiltrate Patrovita’s organization and destroy it from within, Shannon will get Kaminsky’s old job back. Shannon informs Kaminsky that there is a serious leak that has been getting their previous agents sent to infiltrate Patrovita’s mob killed so the only person who will know about Kaminsky is Shannon.

Kaminsky fakes his death and shows up in Chicago as Joe Brenner, disgraced Miami hood looking for a new home. After meeting with Patrovita’s right hand man Rocca (Paul Shenar) and Rocca’s right hand man Max Keller (Robert Davi) Kaminsky/Brenner goes full blown Yojimbo, working on the inside to turn the various members of Patrovita’s gang against other as well as stirring up trouble with Patrovita’s chief rival Martin Lamanski (Steven Hill) In the meantime he’s also busy trying to figure out exactly where gambler Monique (Kathryn Harrold) fits in all this and who’s side she’s on.

There’s a couple of points in RAW DEAL that for me kick it up a notch above most of Schwarzenegger’s bloodbaths. I like how he gets to wear cool suits and act all smooth. He carries it off a lot better than you would think. He’s no Roger Moore but he’s no slouch either. He knows what fork to use to eat his shrimp and how to play baccarat and that puts him two points up on me.

I liked the scene where Shannon is trying to talk Kaminsky into the job. He makes it very clear this is an unsanctioned mission of pure personal revenge that he himself is financing with his life savings. In an unexpected bit of business, Kaminsky says to Shannon that his son knew that by being an FBI agent his life was at risk every day and he accepted that. Shannon should accept it as well and just move on. It isn’t until Shannon mentions that he can get Kaminsky’s job back that Kaminsky agrees to take the job. I always appreciate it when the writers of a movie acknowledge that sometimes a hero does things because there’s something in it for him as well. It’s a good piece of motivation that didn’t have to be there but I’m glad it is.

I also liked the scene where Kaminsky meets with Shannon to tell him that he’s seriously considering going off the reservation and embracing Joe Brenner’s life for real. Again, it’s a scene that didn’t have to be there but it’s a scene that shows that the writers didn’t want this to just be another shoot ‘em up and at least wanted to give some depth to the Kaminsky character and not have him be the typical Schwarzenegger One Man Army.

I hadn’t seen this movie in ages but I think it holds up pretty well and a large part of that is due to the supporting cast, all of them seasoned pros who know how to play this material and do their jobs. The quasi-romance between Kaminsky and Monique is handled with just the right touch as Kaminsky still loves his wife but is plainly attracted to this woman who is also strongly attracted to him.

And yes, we do get Schwarzenegger as the unstoppable killing machine at the end where he takes on the entire Patrovita mob in an orgy of gunfire and non-stop violence. But the movie gives us a satisfying emotional ending as well between Kaminsky and Shannon.

So should you see RAW DEAL? Without a doubt. No, It’s no “Commando” or “Total Recall” but I think it’s an awfully damn good movie for Schwarzenegger to attempt at that stage of his acting career. If you’re an Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, you’ve probably seen RAW DEAL already. But if you haven’t, do so. I guarantee you’ll see a side of him you never saw before. And thanks to the magic of YouTube you can watch the entire movie right below. Enjoy.

106 minutes

Rated R

The Expendables 2

Directed by Simon West

Produced by Avi Lerner

Screenplay by Sylvester Stallone and Richard Wenk

Story by Ken Kaufman, David Agosto and Richard Wenk

Based on characters created by David Callaham

If they continue on making them this entertaining and this much fun, they can make Expendables movies from now until the lid is slammed shut on me. They last time I had this much fun watching a movie was when I saw “The Avengers” and for a lot of the same reason: I felt like I was watching a lot of old friends that I’ve known for years together at last. And like “The Avengers” which put together a bunch of classic Marvel superheroes on screen at the same time for the first time, THE EXPENDABLES 2 finally gives up what the first “Expendables” only teased us with. At last The Holy Trinity of Action Heroes (Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis) standing shoulder to shoulder blasting the hell outta the bad guys.  It’s a stand-up and cheer moment for sure and it only gets better when none other than Chuck Norris joins the party.

But before that we get an absolutely outlandishly kick-ass pre-credits sequence where The Expendables invade Nepal to rescue a Chinese businessman. The old crew is back together: leader Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) knife specialist Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) martial artist Yin Yang (Jet Li) demolitions expert Toll Road (Randy Couture) weapons specialist Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) and sniper Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren.) They also have a new member: Billy The Kid (Liam Hemsworth) because you can never have enough snipers.

After the Nepal rescue, Barney is approached by CIA spook Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) who still is not happy about the way the Vilena mission The Expendables undertook for him went down. He proposes a new mission to clean the slate. Barney will take on another new member, technical expert Maggie (Yu Nan) and fly to Albania to recover an item from a crashed airplane. The Expendables do so, only to have the item stolen from them by Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and his private terrorist army, The Sangs. Maggie reveals that the item is a computer that contains the blueprints for an abandoned Soviet Cold War era mine being used to store five tons of plutonium. Vilain and his right hand man Hector (Scott Adkins) have some really wicked plans for this plutonium.   It’s up to The Expendables to stop Vilain and if they have to blow up the country to save the world…well, that’s just what they’ll do.

And at times it does seem as if they’re going to blow up the country with all the explosions going off. Not to mention the horrendously high body count they rack up in their pursuit of Vilain. And that’s before The Expendables are joined by Mr. Church, the mysterious lone wolf commando Booker (Chuck Norris) and Barney’s rival Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who comes along for the ride. You can imagine the carnage that ensues with that kind of extra firepower added to the team.

And what a ride it is. Watching THE EXPENDABLES 2 for me is like stepping into a time machine and going back to the heyday of Action Movies: the 1980’s. I suspect that those of you, like me, who remember going to the theaters back then when it seemed like every week there was a new movie starring one of these guys playing will get more of a thrill just out of seeing these guys on screen together than anything else. Seeing them all together and obviously having so much fun is nothing less than a blast. And there’s a lot of inside jokes that I chuckled at but I suspect went right over the heads of most of the people in the theater I was watching the movie with.  My favorite one is when Barney casually mentions that Gunner has a degree in chemical engineering and threw away a promising career in that field for a girl. Google Dolph Lundgren and you’ll see why I found that funny. I also got a big grin out of Chuck Norris’ character being named Booker and being described as a lone wolf. Again, Google Chuck and you’ll get the joke.

With the new members of the team on board as well as Willis and Schwarzenegger having bigger roles in this one that means that Toll Road and Hale Caesar don’t have as much to say but they get just as much of their share of the mayhem. And I like how Randy Couture quietly reminds us that his character is the team’s intellectual by having Toll Road simply reading a book in the background while plot exposition is going on in the foreground. And while Hale Caesar does not have a show-stopping moment in this one as he did in “The Expendables” (but let’s face it…taking down an attack helicopter by throwing a missile at it is a tough act to beat) Terry Crews makes sure that when Hale Caesar does have something to do, it’s memorable.

I also liked the action sequences in THE EXPENDABLES 2 better than the first one. The editing on the first movie was way too choppy in several fight scenes and during the final assault. That’s not the problem here. The action scenes are wonderfully and cleanly shot, full of noise and energy and gloriously blood-drenched with plenty of really impressive practical stunts.

That’s not to say I liked everything about the movie. I didn’t like how one of my favorite characters from the first movie has what amounts to a glorified cameo and simply drops out of the movie. And I’m not merely being descriptive. The character actually does drop.  Charisma Carpenter is totally unnecessary in this movie.  Even more so than in the first one and really, there’s no reason for her character to be in either one of them. The subplot dealing with the relationship between her character and Statham’s Lee Christmas is even more ridiculous considering that Lee spends more time talking to Barney about it than he does to his supposed girlfriend. I’m a big fan of Charisma Carpenter and hey, if the movie wants to give me gratuitous shots of her in a scandalously skimpy dress wiggling and jiggling in a bar, I’m not gonna complain. But she’s too good an actress to be wasted on a three-minute scene that any actress could have played.

So should you see THE EXPENDABLES 2? If you saw the first one, absolutely. Even if you didn’t see the first one, go see THE EXPENDABLES 2. The action is spectacular, especially the Nepal rescue and the final showdown in an airport where Couture, Crews, Lundgren, Norris, Schwarzenegger and Willis decimate the Sangs while Stallone and Van Damme have their mano-a-mano deathmatch. The jokes are as fast as plentiful as the bullets and it’s just such a pleasure to see a good old fashioned Action Movie made by and starring talent who know what they’re doing and do it supremely well. THE EXPENDABLES 2 gets my highest recommendation.

 

103 minutes

Rated R

Conan The Barbarian (1982)

1982

Universal Pictures

Directed by John Milius

Produced by Buzz Feitshans and Raffaella De Laurentiis

Written by John Milius and Oliver Stone

Based on the character/stories created and written by Robert E. Howard

I knew that director John Milius and his screenplay co-writer Oliver Stone got the character of Conan five minutes into the movie.  During the opening credits we see Conan’s father (William Smith) forging a mighty sword.  He then takes the young Conan (Jorge Sanz) to the top of a mountain.  He explains how The Riddle of Steel was stolen from Crom, the god of Cimmeria and that Conan must learn The Riddle of Steel for himself because as his dad succinctly sums up: “For no one in the world can you trust.  Not men, not women, not beasts.  But this-“ and he holds up the gleaming sword.  “-this you can trust.”

It’s not long after this that Conan’s parents, along with all the other adults in his village are slaughtered by the servants of Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) a powerful sorcerer who is also the leader of a cult that worships the snake god Set.  Conan, along with other children are taken as slaves and chained to The Wheel of Pain, a gigantic mill which they push night and day, through weather fair and foul.  It’s torturous work but it has its benefits.  The young Conan grows up into Arnold Schwarzenegger as pushing that damn thing has built up muscles of Herculean proportions.  He’s bought by The Hyborian Age’s version of a fight promoter and wins fame as a gladiator.  He’s freed by his master and after meeting up with the master thief and archer Subotai (Gerry Lopez) takes up a career as a thief himself.

It’s during their attempt to infiltrate The Tower of The Serpent and steal The Eye of The Serpent that Conan meets swordswoman and thief Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) who will become the great love of his life.  It’s their successful and daring theft that brings them to the attention of King Osric (Max von Sydow) who hires the trio to rescue his daughter from The Cult of Set.  While Valeria and Subotai see this as a chance for a really big payday, Conan has his sights on taking the head of Thulsa Doom.

Now, you can say whatever you want about CONAN THE BARBARIAN but it won’t faze me because if nothing else, John Milius and Oliver Stone respected Robert E. Howard’s enough that they obviously not only read his stories but incorporated elements of some of those stories into the movie including what is probably the most famous scene in any Conan story; his crucifixion and his killing of a vulture pecking at his flesh with nothing but his bare teeth.

This movie, along with “The Terminator” launched Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career and it’s easy to see why.  Schwarzenegger at that time looked like he was designed by Frank Frazetta and he inhabits the role as well as Sean Connery did with James Bond or Michael Keaton did with Batman.  For those who claim that Schwarzenegger can’t act, I point out a terrific scene where Conan, Valeria and Subotai plan their assault on Doom’s stronghold.  While Bergman and Lopez have all the dialog, Schwarzenegger says far more than they do in the way he’s sharpening his sword.  And even though Schwarzenegger gets a lot of mocking for his dialog and accent in this movie, I like it.  I mean, the guy does sound like a barbarian from pre-history.   In fact, I like it that 90% of the characters have accents in this movie as they do sound as if they come from another age rather than modern day Californians playing dress up.

The supporting cast is outstanding.  James Earl Jones infuses Thulsa Doom with enormous presence and a true sense of not being entirely human.  His henchmen, played by Sven-Ole Thorson and Ben Davison are suitably impressive.  Bergman and Lopez back up Schwarzenegger well and create their own characters in some really wonderful intimate moments such as the one where Subotai tells the wizard Akiro (Mako) that since Conan, as a Cimmerian will not cry to show grief, Subotai must do it for him.  Mako contributes comedy relief without being buffoonish or degrading his own character.  But that’s to be expected because Mako is epic in everything he does.

And speaking of epic, the musical score by Basil Poledouris has become respected as one of the finest musical scores ever and rightly so.  A large part of the enjoyment of watching CONAN THE BARBARIAN comes from the sheer power of the score.  Poledouris also has done the scores for “Quigley Down Under” and “Lonesome Dove” that are easily as epic as the one for this movie.

So should you see CONAN THE BARBARIAN? No doubt you already have.  It’s one of those movies that everybody and their mother has seen, it seems.  Even chicks who normally shun this type of movie like it was the Ebola virus have seen CONAN THE BARBARIAN.  It’s violent, it’s raw, it’s sexy, and it’s fun.   There’s an excellent reason why CONAN THE BARBARIAN is rightly regarded as a classic.  It truly is inspired by the spirit of Robert E. Howard in a way that the recent remake never even comes close to.  If you’ve seen it, what the hell…watch it again.  And if you haven’t, I envy you discovering it for the first time.  Enjoy.

129 minutes

Rated R