In the Cold War-obsessed eighties, that halcyon decade of Rocky IV, Amerika and "Tear down this wall", the defense industry became a ripe subject for cinematic satire. But how do you expose the furtive malignancy of an enterprise so self-evidently evil and cancerous? That's a problem plaguing both of this week's "My Year of Flops" entries, 1983's Deal Of The Century and 1984's Best Defense. Both films try to make dark and challenging subject matter more palatable by casting bankable Saturday Night Live superstars in central roles but not even the mega-wattage star-power of Chevy Chase and Eddie Murphy respectively could keep the films from dive-bombing with critics and audiences alike. Satires are a tough sell under the best of circumstances. It is satire's solemn duty to generate steady streams of yuks, guffaws and chuckles while simultaneously revealing society's underlying ugliness and duplicity. But audiences generally go to comedies to escape the horrors of the modern world, not to be confronted by them. Who goes to a Chevy Chase movie to recoil at the greed, avariciousness and amorality of the defense industry?
Deal Of The Century marks the peculiar pairing of Chevy Chase and William Friedkin, two hotshot boy wonders who thoroughly blew two of the most auspicious beginnings in show-biz history though I'll take late-period Friedkin over late-period Chase any day of the week (I seriously underrated The Hunted and To Live And Die In L.A is simply one of the best action films of the eighties). By the time he starred in Deal Chase's breezy charm had long since lapsed into smarm and his light comic touch, so deft and winning in Foul Play, Caddyshack and SNL's legendary first year, had devolved into lazy sleep-walking. Chase's career is riddled with "What ifs". What if he'd accepted the lead roles in American Gigolo, Forrest Gump, American Beauty and National Lampoon's Animal House, all parts he was reportedly offered but turned down, according to notstarring.com, a website devoted to documenting all the roles actors turned down or were rejected for (if you haven't checked it out it's one hell of a guilty pleasure/time waster. I highly recommend it)?