Deal of the Century Movie Review:

Claiming an attempt to make the most fun out of the month with the fewest days, Warner Home Video has released six comedies which have never been released on DVD. They are all at least fifteen years old, and feature actors who are famous for other films. These six films are lesser known, and in many ways less remarkable, but they are all light viewing and worth viewing. Deal of the Century is actually one of the most time appropriate releases, dealing with many of the issues that the recent relase, Lord of War dealt with.

Eddie Muntz is an international arms dealer who sells horrible weapons to Third World nations in order to start wars. Along with his cohorts, Muntz sets out to sell a new pilot-less plane, which has failed each of its test displays. Once he can fool them into purchasing a number of these planes, he will be able to retire from selling guns illegally.

Deal of the Century tries extremely hard to be an intelligent film, but the humor suffers because of it. Chevy Chase fits into the role of Muntz perfectly, but the satirical nature of the material doesn’t leave a lot of room for audiences to enjoy the film. It is obviously making a statement, and it is so strong that the humor gets lost more than a few times in the film. There are a few great scenes where Chase is selling guns, and even shoots off a rocket launcher in order to make a sale.

William Friedkin directs this far too intelligent comedy, and it shows that such a mature director had his hands on the material. With any other director this film could have easily turned slapstick, but instead it is consistently satirical. The situations are extremely absurd, but the characters are very real, and it is difficult not to get sucked in a bit.

All of the films in the set of new releases are just lucky to be released on DVD for the first time because of their obscure nature and special features is far too much to expect. There is a trailer of the film and nothing else. The quality of the film is even sub-par, although I imagine it is a great improvement of the film from any other versions floating around on VHS.

Ryan Izay

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