Absolutely amazing

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Poorly done TV-grade story about two very important global issues, one manipulated by Wall Street scoundrels for criminal gain(really?), and the other was nearly overlooked in this rambling and disjointed story that was lowered to moronic and absurd due to poor storytelling and editing, and some really terrible acting by Angie Harmon. Selma Blair was not much better, but Harmon was over the top obvious as a Russian mafia operative, and made her part a leering, grinning joke in a story that should hinge on personal control, secrecy, duplicity and treachery. In her role as the main squeeze of Christian Slater's Wall Street mover and shaker, Blair was allowed facial expressions and body language of a high school freshman girl in a role of a grown woman. Nobody noticed that a bit more shown maturity might be better for her professional role, on Wall Street? Hello! The interesting and compelling part of this type of story should be its devious mystery, secrecy and who-done-it quality, and not in exposing every aspect of "the deal" to the viewer as it unfolded. What a totally dumb film made for dummies and an insult to the talented male lead Christian Slater, who made a big mistake taking a role in this TV level junk. He did well, but was overwhelmed by others' poor acting, and bad casting and overall filmmaking. Only thing good about it was the really ominous and sinister soundtrack. Very effective, so something actually was done right.But, showing again a lack of creativity, the film's title "The Deal" has been used as a film title about a million times before, thus is another perfect example of this filmmaker's total lack of knowing and using just about anything that would make a good movie. A lot of money was lost on this dog that cost way more than it made. And, if he didn't gain any satisfaction from it, and I am sure he didn't in this loser, at least Slater got paid for his good work. He was the only one who deserved it.

Director Harvey Kahn was completely deprived of any inspiration in bringing to screen this political thriller story, happening in the corridors of the big corporate companies dealing with dirty oil deals, in a close but probable future where the western world is immersed in a war with the Arab oil-rich countries.Nothing can really save this production. The screenplay is routine and full of stereotypes, not batter in complexity than a mid-level TV movie. Acting of Christian Slater is fair, and Selma Blair getting full time screen is quite promising as an actress, but not enough to carry the film higher. Directing is mediocre, it keeps the conflict being obscure and confusing at the start, does not make anything happening on the screen more clear or more interesting later, and moves the camera in a neutral and dry manner.Routine stuff, nobody would have been sorry if this film was not made.

-edit- davemed says "Stay away from this one." As mentioned below for all those interested in the truth of how the world works this is a great movie. For those who prefer to deny it and stick their heads in the sand like a south park character "stay away from this one...".*It is interesting to see how IMDb has many members exist now who bring down a film with important information for the growth of ourselves and our planet. They do it with interesting techniques too. If you study their grammar you often find an arrogant tone and adjectives such as "muddled" or "slow" which can leave the reader feeling negative in a very effective way. The telling symptom displayed by these people which proves their ill-minded intentions in my opinion, is the opposite of what they are saying is true. This is pure shilling and these people are writing this stuff for a particular reason - they don't want people to watch movies that provide information about the truth.After reading the negative comments on this movie I was apprehensive to see it. While there are some valid points per say with regards to the direction of the movie, the script and actors do very well. The result is a movie that does a very good job at raising the awareness of the ins and outs of big business, wall street, corruption and the energy industry.Christian Slater and Salma Hayek and the other actors all do a good job to portray their characters. The environment-caring industry is also revealed in an effective way; showing how it has to compete with ignorance and greed. Also showing how this ignorance and greed is paid off with extremely lucrative sums of money; quoting from the movie, "...so this is how the other 0.5% live".An entertaining movie that is worth watching for anyone who enjoys learning about the truths of big business and how it attempts to control the energy industry.

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.