There are aspects to almost every film that would interest a wide variety of people. When deciding to watch a film, you must ask yourself, “would I really want to see this?”. Maybe you are persuaded from the actors slated in the credits, maybe a good story regardless of the actors involved does it for you. Maybe you single out specific films made only by specific directors. Whatever the case, you are sure to have a taste. When it comes to “Deadfall”, it unfortunately has little more to offer than what the title suggests.
Eric Bana plays a criminal by the name of Addison on the run for the Canadian border with his sister, Liza (Olivia Wilde). Addison decides that it would be best to split up and meet later, at the border. So the story follows both sides as they travel north. Charlie Hunnam plays Jay, a convicted felon who was just released from prison. While Addison travels in the cold, Liza meets up with Jay, and the two hit it off almost immediately. It began as a play to get to his parent’s cabin near the border, but clearly it turns into something more. The question then turns into…will they get away with it and cross the border?
There is one major flaw that this film holds, there is simply no hero. Every story needs some kind of protagonist, even if it is an unlikely rookie cop saving the day. If anything, the protagonist in this film is Jay, but you can hardly call a convicted felon a hero unless it overtly expresses as such, which it does not. So we are offered a number of characters that we couldn’t really care less about, regardless of who plays them.
Yes, the movie is somewhat filled with not-quite A-list actors, but actors that are good enough to earn respect. Every one of the major actors in this film has been seen in a multitude of worthwhile performances. It is clear that they indeed attempted to do their best with their abilities in acting, but because we couldn’t care too much about the characters, we then couldn’t care too much for the actors either. So what about the story?
There was nothing that particularly wrong with the story. The main characters both had a common goal to cross the Canadian border, and had to go through several obstacles in order to do so, and the story was split into two, even three main arcs that all make sense. The only problem was there was no hook. Okay, so Bana’s character is a bit crazy, but why? We know almost nothing about his story; we just know that he is just…crazy for the most part.
You will notice almost immediately that the characters played by Bana and Wilde have rather heavy southern accents. Even though Bana sounded rather odd trying on the accent, you can tell he had more confidence doing the accent than Wilde. For Wilde, sometimes it was there, and sometimes it wasn’t, it was almost as if she was really just there to look at.
There is one obvious positive about the entire film, and that was the visuals. The shots look great. Whoever was in charge of camerawork and camera angles, as well as editing knew exactly what they were doing. It isn’t a question in my mind that these people were doing their job. The fault simply lies within the writing, which defines what the rest of the film turns out.
To tell you the truth, the movie just isn’t gripping. There is no reason for anyone to really want to see the movie past the actors involved. It isn’t bad, but it definitely isn’t Oscar-material, or even good, really. Don’t take my word for it, check it out when it comes to Blu-Ray and DVD on Feb. 5!
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