Deal of the Century

Deal of the Century is for those with an appreciation of the absurd. A dry, dark comedy, and an ironic portrayal of 1980s American (Reaganite) values. The film is a humorous, critical portrait of the hypocrisy behind Ronald Reagan's deadly cold war shenanigans. Its a political comedy -- very well directed by William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist). It is also well performed and photographed. Chevy Chase is perfectly cast as a cynical arms dealer. And the late, great, Gregory Hines, as his partner, disenchanted with the arms business and suddenly filled with pathos, desperately and hilariously turns from heavy-weapons to Jesus. It is not a perfectly plotted or written film, but it strives to intelligently portray its era.

If you work in certain areas in the defense business, you will be sure that some one who worked in the business did the script. Some of the most outrageous incidents in the film are the most true to life. It may be that you have to have some professional insight to appreciate it fully. It's like a Dilbert cartoon.

Eddie Muntz is a pervasive black market arms dealer who after a missed sale, meets a fellow salesman Harold in the same field for the US Luckup Corporation while in South America. After he commits suicide with the stress of waiting by the phone for the government dictator to ring him back to complete the deal. Eddie answers and takes over the deal which involves a new high-tech, non-pilot plane known as the Peacemaker. Soon enough everybody wants to get on this multi-million dollar deal. Eddie's work pal Ray has found god, and he's doing his best trying to keep him on the job and Harold's icy widow Catherine wants her share of the prize.

William Friedkin's "Deal Of the Century" is somewhere in between a black comedy and frank pot-shot on the international arms trade. It never distinguishes itself either way, but I think that's the point. Especially how nervously bizarre this turns out to be. I certainly enjoyed this misunderstood satirical item on an interestingly flavorers topic and the sardonically dark humour was neat treat to the senses. Those looking for a laugh-out-loud affair will only get humour that's rather broadly downbeat in tone, despite how over-blown they turn out to be. While, it didn't constantly make me laugh, it got some grimaces out of me. It can feel like a Chevy Chase vehicle most of the time, as the rest of the cast do pale in comparison. That's not their fault, because their characters don't have the material to lift them out of Chase's shadow. Chase is one of my favourite iconic 80's comedians and he immediately fits the role with his causally dry and quick-witted personality. Sigourney Weaver is there to look good in her steely firebrand performance and Gregory Hines doesn't look too interested throughout. There's a short comic performance by Wallace Shawn too.

The freshly ammo-packed story by Paul Bickerman is complicatedly knotty and obvious with its attacks. Creeping in were oddball situations and a surrealistic air on the worrying subject at hand. The snappy script works up a creative novelty, smearing it with sneering gags, spicy irony and that of Chase's slyly gruff voice-over narration to string scenes together. Super weapons to ensure peace, nicely put. As for William Friedkin's direction, well at first I didn't even know that this was on his resume. His style is extremely random and kinetic in just what's going to happen, but this unfocused mark goes on to morph its way into the premise. The interestingly high octane climax springs to mind. The production does look cheap, but the sweeping musical score creates the right vibe and there's strikingly framed camera-work. Explosions make there way in and the effects for the plane look rather hokey when its up in the air, but decent enough when on the ground.

While, I don't see too much love for this offering. It isn't significantly great and it can be clumsy, but I don't see it as a piece of absurd garbage that it's made out to be. Simply a delightful, if farcical romp that kept me highly entertained.

"Deal Of The Century" was director William Friedkin's attempt to create a "black comedy" satirizing the armaments industry, in much the same way as Stanley Kubrick satirized the nuclear balance of power in "Dr. Strangelove." Unfortunately, it falls short of that ambitious goal.

The movie concerns an arms dealer, Eddie Muntz (Chevy Chase), who gets an opportunity to take over the sale of an ultra-advanced pilotless combat aircraft to a dumb South American dictator when the original salesperson dies unexpectedly.

Friedkin clearly thought he was making a great movie here, in the way he diligently employed many of the same elements as "Strangelove": verisimilitude in the names of arms companies and weapon systems, blatant phallic symbolism, sex-obsessed characters, sight gags, and a basically bizarre, unreal plot.

Unfortunately, all Friedkin ends up doing is showing that he is no Kubrick (at least not after "The French Connection" anyway), Chevy Chase is no Peter Sellers, and in general those associated with this movie just aren't in the same league as those who made "Strangelove." Many of the lines and sight gags just aren't that funny, and the satirical point about the armaments industry gets lost in a meandering plot with an irrelevant subplot about Muntz' romance with the dead salesman's widow (Sigourney Weaver). An actual romance tended to dilute the satirical effectiveness of the sexual obsessions of the major characters.

It seems like everyone's opinion on this movie is evenly divided. People either love it or hate it. Personally, I am not a Chevy Chase fan by any stretch of the imagination. But I like many of William Friedkin's films so I wanted to give this a chance and went in without too many preconceptions.

It obviously can't stand up to a comparison to DR. STRANGELOVE as a few here have done. However, it still remains a fairly on-target, unflattering satire of the weapons industry and by extrapolation, other mass production industries that love to sell the government and public crap product cosmetically hyped as the next great answer to all their fears and desires, product that ends up being useless or obsolete within a year (if it even works properly in the first place). There are some pretty funny scenes sprinkled throughout and I was pleasantly surprised through the whole film how much dark, subversively funny jabs Friedkin gets away with. Especially in a big studio movie.

There's one scene in particular that makes the film well worth seeing --Gregory Hines (I believe it was him) gets into a verbal altercation with another extremely hotheaded driver (a maniacal Tony Plana) (over a fender bender? it's been a while since I've seen it) -- the verbal sparring quickly escalates into a life-threatening situation and the emotional dynamics the two actors bring to the scene is scarily believable while remaining extremely funny. This scene alone provides a microcosmic metaphor for the provocations of nations going to war and perfectly illustrates the pointless absurdity of aggressive behaviour in general. Also of note, it's great to see the underrated Vince Edwards in a large supporting role as the ruthless air weapons manufacturer.

DEAL OF THE CENTURY is never less than amusing and has some extremely funny sequences -- much better than many of these IMDb reviews would lead you to believe.