The Deal (2005)

Touches You

Too much of everything

Nice effects though.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The United States is in an oil crunch. So when the banking firm that "Tom Hanson" (Christian Slater) works for gets an opportunity to make a deal with an oil firm that might have the inside track on some foreign oil, the firm is only too happy to jump at the chance. But there are risks involved and Tom doesn't know the oil business that well. Add insider politics, the Russian mafia along with corporate greed and you have the basics of this movie. As usual, Christian Slater performs quite well. So too does Selma Blair as his environmentalist girlfriend, "Abbey Gallagher". Unfortunately, I didn't care too much for the performance of Angie Harmon as the mysterious "Anna" mostly because her Russian accent seemed too artificial. One minute she's speaking in perfect English and the next her accent is off the charts. Likewise, I thought the ending was too quick and convenient. But in any case, I still enjoyed the movie and believe it's worth a look for those who like films of this nature.

It's rough to call something people worked on so hard for 'uneven' but there it is. The Deal is, simply put, about a 'deal'. It's a Wall Street thriller. And at the other end of the deal is oil. A planet in trouble where the carbon monoxide level is the highest it's been in three quarters of a million years, where 50,000,000 people are estimated to be on the run from climate catastrophes within four years, where the top twenty two median temperatures have been recorded in the past twenty six years, and so forth.It's been done before and it will be done again until the dependence on fossil fuels is ended, until the electric car is allowed to proliferate, until the oil barons get their hands off the automobile industry, until things settle down in the middle east, and so forth.Everyone does a fair job in this one except Angie. Sorry Angie, but for reasons that can't be exposed here but that will become apparent to viewers you just don't cut it.The movie's uneven because its thrill factor is propelled through at least half way by withholding important facts about the plot. And at that point you just have to see everything turns out all right with the usual modicum of plot devices tossed in.

This movie was like a forced sitting through a Vogon poetry reading....except much, much worse. Don't believe the flowery reviews, that one can only expect, are coming from those less than objective. This movie attempts to tie in the conspiracy plots involving Big Oil a la Syriana with the big Government cover-up of Lord of War with all the talent of an English undergrad the night after a kegger at Phi Beta Kapa.It boggles the mind how Hollywood execs continue to complain about decreasing box office sales and rising movie piracy rates when they keep trying to present garbage like The Deal for public consumption.

Christian Slater in "The Deal". Good lord in heaven: what did Slater do in a former life to deserve this movie? He has made a lot of really bad choices lately ("Mindhunters", "Masked and Anonymous", "Alone in The Dark") but this is the kind of script even Oliver Platt would walk away from. A laughably bad script from first (and hopefully last) time screen writer, Ruth Epstein, who should have kept her job at Goldman Sachs. The pathetic premise of an oil conspiracy is about as thin as an Olsen Twin, and the dialog is twice as brittle; made doubly so by Angie Harmon when she tries to pull off a Russian accent (which, if I've done my math right, means the dialog has the octo-brittleness of a single Olsen, but I digress). Slater tries to crawl his way through a flimsy maze of corporate deceit, while woman after woman can't help but chew his tongue. Slema Blair is actually very good as his tree-hugging girlfriend who shows him the path to salvation, only the scene where she actually show him anything must have been deleted, 'cause I never saw it. Maybe they're saving it for the DVD. There is simply nothing thrilling about this thriller. They must have just figured if the stacked the cast with actors like Robert Loggia and John Heard they could ad-lib their way around the awkward exposition. Director Harvey Kahn, who has produced an impressive body of work but directed nothing of note, must have compromising photos of the cast. Ultimately, Slater is totally miss-cast as a Wall Street hack. They should have gone with an unknown and then maybe they could have gotten away with the low budget production values and pass 'The Deal' off as a student film. You have been warned.