Is it fair to call Raw Deal the most generic Arnold Schwarzenegger film of 1980s.
That's not to say it's a bad film. It's mildly okay as a movie and it's quite entertaining.
But my God does it just hit every single basic note you can think of.
Disgruntled ex special agent, now turned town cop being recalled into service to deal with an extreme threat, or a case that may be connected to something from his distant past.
Combined with a generic undercover story, an incredibly generic romance plot* and a crime Empire that's never expanded on.
It just checks all the boxes for your most basic Hollywood film.
And as I stated before it's pretty great.
Except for the romance part it just felt like needless filler until we get to our next action scene. Which I would have preferred if we have focussed on something else. Maybe more criminal drama or Arnold actually having some interaction with the guy who hired him to take out the mafia in the first place.
So Arnold was this former FBI or CIA agent who got fired from his position because he brutally butchered a captured felon who was involved in a rape case.
The film wants us to agree with Arnold brutally beating this guy to a pulp because he's a monster.
And that might have worked out better if Arnold had to chase this guy down or he caught him in the act of committing another atrocious crime. But just beat him half to death for the kick of it. You know a real Dirty Harry kind of character.
And that's not the best route to take if you want us to actually like the guy.
We're supposed to empathize with Arnold Schwarzenegger character.
But whatever, that's not the point of this. We need to get our super specialized character out of their natural environment and into some unknown place so that they can return to set environment go undercover and have a fun time pretending to be the bad guy and also systematically destroying the mafia from the inside out.
Even though Arnold doesn't really do a great job of it until the end of the film. He's just hovering around and then it's some point the guy who hired him to take down the mafia nearly dies and only then does Arnold's character decide ''to heck with this facade I'm just going to put on my leather jacket grab every gun I own and literally shoot down the entire Mafia.''
Something I think he could have done from much earlier in the movie. I mean you're not working for the police you're not technically out of the law. You could just shoot everyone down and be done with it.
And of course the whole time he's got this kind of fake relationship with this Mafia girl who hates one of the other Mobsters that he also has beef with.
And it indicates that there's a romance between the two of them but Arnold still married to his wife who thinks he's dead. And therefore doesn't actually want to do anything with this girl.
So it's kind screwing around with her, buying her gifts and then getting her in trouble.
Yeah she's not innocent in the film either. But you could have just avoided her all together and save himself needless problems.
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