The Deal

Bill Macy, Meg Ryan, Elliot Gould, and LL Cool J star in "The Deal" from 2008, directed by Steven Schachter and written by Macy and Schacter.

Macy plays another loser, this time Charlie Berns, who has a couple of producer credits on his resume, but they're not recent, and he can't get arrested. His nephew (Jason Ritter) gives him his script about Benjamin Disraeli to read. He's not interested in it but then he sees an article about a major star in adventure films, Bobby Mason (LL Cool J) who has converted to Judaism and wants to do a film with a Jewish theme for his next project.

Charlie manages to convince a studio that he has Bobby Mason's next kick your butt film and a studio executive, Deidre (Meg Ryan) is assigned to make it happen. Soon "Bill & Ben" is being filmed, with Berns' heartbroken nephew screaming, "There's not one word of my script in this." Then Bobby Mason is kidnapped and held for ransom, and the studio doesn't want to pay. But Deidre has an idea.

We've seen these behind the scenes getting a movie made before, and this is absurd but quite good. And how absurd is it? Probably not far off. Macy is excellent as Berns, who has been around the block a few times and knows how to talk his way into and out of trouble. This movie took a while to get made, so there's no doubt Macy knew what he was talking about when he wrote the script - I'm sure it wasn't a new experience for him.

Ryan's role could have been played by anyone, but at 47 and once the ingénue du jour (as Rene Zwelleger, Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, and Sally Field once were), she has a problem. While leading men are leading men from the time they're in their twenties until death, pert, pretty young actresses have a limited shelf life, and the transition to lead woman not only is difficult, it's often not even worth it since that doesn't last long either. Today things are much better -- at least 30 is no longer the cut-off like it was in Bette Davis' day -- but the fact remains, unless your name is Meryl Streep, you'll be in character roles by the time you're 55. If you have a job. So I can't blame her for doing this role.

Good, enjoyable movie, especially if you're a writer and know what happens to scripts in Hollywood.

I discovered this movie by accident today. Just scrolling through suggestions on Prime, and there it was. And I thought Oh! A Meg Ryan film I'm not familiar with?! And William H. Macy too! Now, the fact that I've never heard of it did give me pause, but I thought it was worth a shot with the two of them in the leads. I barely (and I do mean BARELY) made it through the first half hour. It's just so SOOOOOOO bad. So boring. I have much better things to do than sit through drivel like this. - And so do you!

Not funny huh... "Benjamin Disraeli? What happened to Tony Blair?" - "...she throws like a girl!!" - "Hey guys thanks much, you're fired, great input though" - "....colonel America" - "...if you circumcised this movie it still couldn't be Jewish." - "...that's Bobbie's trailer, that's his gym and that's his mobile temple." LL Cool J in a Yarmukuh over a Du Rag: Moderately hysterical. William H. Macy's bare butt: Hysterical. Meg Ryan's choices in footwear: Priceless. Especially when compared to some other so called romantic comedies I've seen recently I was pleasantly surprised and entertained by this movie. Besides, Elliott Gould can make me laugh by just reading the phone book.

Saw it last night (April 5th) at Philly Film Festival. Mr. Macy, Jason Ritter and Fiona Glascott were all present and were gracious to the max.

This film was clearly a labor of love and had a very difficult "birthing". But it never connected with me in any significant way (especially the "quasi-insider making of a movie" road it took us down).

Macy as ALWAYS is magnificent. Meg Ryan is...well Meg Ryan and that is NOT all things bad. I think Jason Ritter has a great future in the business (and did fine work in the late and very lamented TV Show Joan of Arcadia too).

But I thought the plot as far as I could discern it was both muddled and totally unbelievable. I know it made sense to folks more in tune with things that could go right/wrong/changes of direction in getting a film greenlighted and made.But I'm far from an insider so the references were quite lost on me for the most part.

To me it doesn't quite make it as satire (or I didn't get it) and not funny enough to be a sustained comedy.

But I truly hope it is just me and this film gets an audience and makes $$ for those (especially Mr. Macy) who put their heart, soul and funds into its making.

Before watching The Deal I read some positive reviews from over excited people, thought I was going to be in for a treat, certainly with William H. Macy and Meg Ryan in the cast, two actors that I appreciate, but in the end it was just disappointing. The acting was good though, but the story is just a bit boring. And it's not the couple comedy scenes that were going to save this picture. I wished I liked it more but I didn't, I was actually glad when I saw the end credits appear, felt like a three hour movie instead of half that time.