This lesser-but-still-good Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle came in 1986, a breather between COMMANDO and PREDATOR. It opens with some mobsters shooting up a house where cops are protecting a witness. The first line in the movie is a cop reading a Trivial Pursuits question about how many Oscars John Wayne won. The correct answer is never given, but we get the idea: John Wayne is awesome, we’re not in this for the Oscars, but John Wayne deserved Oscars, and so do we, etc.
(note: Marcel from Brooklyn points out that Wayne did get an Oscar for TRUE GRIT. So I guess RAW DEAL is supposed to be Schwarzenegger’s TRUE GRIT or something. I haven’t looked up if he got an Oscar for it or not.)
The introduction of Schwarzenegger’s character is a classic: he’s in a Jeep in the middle of a high speed chase with a motorcycle cop. He’s chasing the cop. How often do you see somebody chasing a cop? It’s beautiful! Of course it turns out that Schwarzenegger is a small town sheriff and he’s chasing a guy who’s impersonating an officer, but that’s okay. It was clever to start off with that so you don’t know what’s going on. And it’s a good chase. (more…)
