That seems to be the message of Raw Deal, an absurd Schwarzenegger vehicle from the 1980s, in which an intricate plot of mob wars and double-crosses is resolved with a hail of perfectly aimed, vengeance-fueled bullets.
Arnold plays Mark Kaminsky, a small-town sheriff who used to be in the FBI, before he was forced to resign because he brutally beat a man who had raped a small child. His wife (Blanche Baker) hates him because he resigned instead of fighting for his job, she's bored in small-town America, prompting her to ice a cake with an expletive frosted on the top. After she throws it at his head, Arnold returns with the immortal line, "You should not drink and bake."
That sort of depressed but oddly humorous atmosphere permeates all hour and forty minutes of Raw Deal, as Mark is brought in by his old boss Harry (Darren McGavin) to infiltrate the Patrovita mob and bring it down from the inside. Soon the bitter wife is all but forgotten as Mark fakes his own death by blowing up an oil refinery. (Probably an effective way to fake a death, but would a law-loving sheriff fake his death in a way that ensures a hugely disastrous oil fire?)
The plot trudges along through double-crosses and betrayals involving various police officers, mobsters, and the obligatory love interest (Kathryn Harrold, given little do since, even though his wife is awful to him and he's technically dead, he's still a dutiful married man). Arnold bides his time, cracking jokes and doing battle with the minimal threats that come along, until a surprising hit prompts him to forget his weeks of careful planning and simply kill everyone in the mob. It's a shame that hit hadn't happened earlier, it would have saved everyone involved a good deal of time. Wait, make that a RAW deal of time.
The shoot-em-up ending is preceded by a odd scene in which Arnold takes out his vast arsenal, and lovingly inspects and loads each weapon. The scene is filmed with such drawn out zeal that it could only be defined as sexual. As for the climactic battle itself, Arnold breaks the windshield off his car, pops "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones in the tape deck, and drives around a construction site firing at will.
Handling the scene in a such a ridiculous manner speaks to the way this movie could never have worked as an exciting action movie. When the hero is so invulnerable that he can put on rock tunes as he blows away his enemies, there's no audience investment in his fate. As soon as Arnold joins the mob we know everyone but him is going to be dead at the end, and not only that, he will be rewarded for his mass genocide (He gets reinstated for killing roughly fifty men, forty-nine more than it took to get him kicked out in the first place). As silly Arnold-tinged action, this movie can be laughed at, and enjoyed to a certain extent, but never without acknowledging that for the most part the entertainment is at the movie's expense.
Arnold plays Mark Kaminsky, a small-town sheriff who used to be in the FBI, before he was forced to resign because he brutally beat a man who had raped a small child. His wife (Blanche Baker) hates him because he resigned instead of fighting for his job, she's bored in small-town America, prompting her to ice a cake with an expletive frosted on the top. After she throws it at his head, Arnold returns with the immortal line, "You should not drink and bake."
That sort of depressed but oddly humorous atmosphere permeates all hour and forty minutes of Raw Deal, as Mark is brought in by his old boss Harry (Darren McGavin) to infiltrate the Patrovita mob and bring it down from the inside. Soon the bitter wife is all but forgotten as Mark fakes his own death by blowing up an oil refinery. (Probably an effective way to fake a death, but would a law-loving sheriff fake his death in a way that ensures a hugely disastrous oil fire?)
The plot trudges along through double-crosses and betrayals involving various police officers, mobsters, and the obligatory love interest (Kathryn Harrold, given little do since, even though his wife is awful to him and he's technically dead, he's still a dutiful married man). Arnold bides his time, cracking jokes and doing battle with the minimal threats that come along, until a surprising hit prompts him to forget his weeks of careful planning and simply kill everyone in the mob. It's a shame that hit hadn't happened earlier, it would have saved everyone involved a good deal of time. Wait, make that a RAW deal of time.
The shoot-em-up ending is preceded by a odd scene in which Arnold takes out his vast arsenal, and lovingly inspects and loads each weapon. The scene is filmed with such drawn out zeal that it could only be defined as sexual. As for the climactic battle itself, Arnold breaks the windshield off his car, pops "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones in the tape deck, and drives around a construction site firing at will.
Handling the scene in a such a ridiculous manner speaks to the way this movie could never have worked as an exciting action movie. When the hero is so invulnerable that he can put on rock tunes as he blows away his enemies, there's no audience investment in his fate. As soon as Arnold joins the mob we know everyone but him is going to be dead at the end, and not only that, he will be rewarded for his mass genocide (He gets reinstated for killing roughly fifty men, forty-nine more than it took to get him kicked out in the first place). As silly Arnold-tinged action, this movie can be laughed at, and enjoyed to a certain extent, but never without acknowledging that for the most part the entertainment is at the movie's expense.