obriekat This movie explicitly states that they are in northern Michigan (the upper peninsula) and all I could think about the entire time was how terrible and unrealistic everyone's accents were. Disappointing because it subtracted from the quality of the movie. Details like that aren't trivial and I'm wondering why they chose to have a police Captain who sounds like he's from Boston, Charlie Hunnam who has a weird "American" accent that just sounds off for some weird reason, and Australian Eric Bana speaking like he's from Alabama.... Just odd choices all around. On a positive note, the film kept my attention and unfolded at a nice pace. It has pretty scenery. The violence is graphic enough to make you cringe but is realistic. Over all I give it a "B".

jimbo-53-186511 Addison (Eric Bana) and Liza (Olivia Wilde) are brother and sister who have just robbed a casino. Together with their getaway driver Theo they're heading for the Canadian border when they hit a deer on the road and crash. Theo gets killed and after Addison kills a state trooper who is investigating the crash, both Addison and Liza decide to split up. Following the death of the state trooper, the police decide to set up road blocks in the hope of catching the person responsible for their colleagues death. Will Addison and Liza manage to make it to the border with the increased police presence?This film gets off to a really bad start with the clichéd unexpected crash and it never really recovers from there; to its credit this film does at least get your attention from the start, but perhaps not in the way that it should. Right from the start it felt awkward watching Addison and Liza on screen together because it didn't feel like I was watching a brother and sister - the early scene where Liza is stripping in front of Addison and he's staring at her and she then asks him if he's 'enjoying the view' or words to that effect. As I mentioned, it was awkward and kind of made me take a disliking to their characters which straight away put a downer on the film for me.Shortly after we're introduced to Jay (Charlie Hunnam), a former boxer who won a silver medal at the Beijing Olympics who's been released from prison after being sent there for losing a fight he was meant to win - I think. It's quite clear that his character is introduced as a mere plot device to enable the siblings to reunite at the end of the film. It's not always a bad thing if the journey from A to B is predictable, but it is if it's in a film such as Deadfall which has very little entertainment value and at the same time gives the audience nothing to care about. In fairness the writers do at least try and justify Jay as a plot device by at least fleshing his character out somewhat so I can see good and bad here. The romance between Jay and Liza was rather strained and unconvincing - this is made worse at the end when he maintains that he loves her, even though she tells Addison to leave with her when poor Jay still has a knife stuck through his hand. Leave it out!!Addison's solo journey is slightly more interesting than Liza and Jay's trite romance, but even his journey isn't particularly tense or exciting with good ole Addison being able to take on all manner of adversaries without even breaking into a sweat. That is just one of the problems with this film; there's no tension - I never once feared for either sibling and never once felt scared for them. They seem to have time to sit around drinking wine and building snowmen etc. You're supposed to be being chased for goodness sake.The film wasn't even particularly well-structured; the police are seemingly setting up road blocks and doing a sweep of the area, but they don't notice any footprints in the snow. They also don't bother examining the car that they crashed at the start of the film. The roads are all closed at one point, but then opened again even though they haven't caught anyone. Also, wouldn't it have been easier just to scramble a helicopter to do a sweep of the area? It would have also been better if it felt like the police were gradually piecing things together as it would have made the film more intelligent and involving, but the writing just wasn't there I'm afraid.Although Deadfall wasn't an out and out terrible film, it was a disappointing film and certainly could have been a lot better.

estebangonzalez10 "What would home look like? I don't know. A farmhouse in the valley, I guess, like the one we grew up in, Liza and I."Academy Award winning director for his foreign film The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, now brings us an American crime thriller dealing with dysfunctional families. It seems to be an odd choice for a director who had so much success back in Austria considering this is an average B-film that doesn't introduce anything new or unique to the genre. Deadfall never manages to deliver the thrills that it promises either and has a rather unsatisfying ending. At times it felt like a film that was trying to be something else, but it never quite figured out what it wanted to be and ended up only scratching the surface of the dysfunctional family drama it was so desperately tying to explore. Perhaps it suffered from trying to add several subplots and intertwine them together towards the climactic end, but ultimately Deadfall felt like your average crime thriller with a strong ensemble cast, but a poor and unimaginative script. Deadfall never quite delivers the thrills and the characters are underdeveloped turning this film into a messy ordeal. As much as I wanted to enjoy this, I couldn't find anything redeeming about it, and not even the beautiful Olivia Wilde shines here. It's a dull film that tries to be more important than it really is with way too many subplots and overlapping themes that are barely explored.The screenplay was written by Zach Dean centering on two siblings, Addison (Eric Bana) and Liza (Olivia Wilde), who are heading towards the Canadian border after having pulled of a casino heist. We never see the actual heist take place since the film opens with them already in route to the border when all of a sudden in the midst of a blizzard their vehicle crashes into a deer. Addison is forced to kill the patrolman and decides to split up with Liza and meet up later as the police will be after him. On another note, we are introduced to a former boxer named Jay (Charlie Hunnam) who is being released from prison. The first thing Jay does is call his mother June (Sissy Spacek) who lives in a farmhouse near the spot where Addison and Liza crashed. She invites Jay over for Thanksgiving dinner despite the fact that he's been estranged with his father Chet (Kris Kristofferson). Along the way, Jay finds Liza nearly freezing to death near the highway and he decides to give her a lift. Addison on the other hand is being hunted by Sheriff Becker (Treat Williams) and his men who are closing in on the trail of blood he's left behind. Becker's daughter, Hannah (Kate Mara), whose also an officer is ordered to stay in the station and out of trouble. As the characters are all introduced it becomes inevitable to realize that they are all going to intersect somewhere along the way.Despite the talented ensemble cast, the script is so poorly written that there is not much they can do to prevent their characters from becoming cardboard cutouts. Even the always reliable and legendary actors such as Kris Kristofferson and Sissy Spacek can't do anything to save this film. Hunnam and Wilde have a very poorly developed romantic subplot that felt extremely rushed. Bana didn't really look too menacing as the villain and at times his character felt cartoonish. The dysfunctional family elements that this film tries to explore never really gets anywhere and they all seem too cliché. The male characters are seen as tough while the females are forgiving and patient. The western showdown near the end wasn't engaging either and everything about this film felt ordinary despite the different themes they were trying to blend together. It never digs under the surface of those elements it's trying to introduce and that's why the film feels so dull and empty. Deadfall is not the important and smart thriller it's trying to be.

FlashCallahan Criminal Addison is on the run to with accomplice Theo and sister Liza. Theo hits a deer, loses control of the car and dies. and Addison splits money with Liza and tells her to get to the border while he takes an alternate route.Former boxer Jay, who was jailed for throwing a fight, is released from prison on probation and calls his mother to inform her of his homecoming. While driving home, he sees Liza and gives her a ride. They fall for each other instantly. The local troops are hunting Addison, but he seeks refuge in a house he comes across.Belonging to Jays parents.....I was hugely surprised by this movie. I was expecting another Heist gone wrong movie, with the cops chasing Bana, and ending in some glorious shoot out that would try and emulate Butch Cassidy.Its so much more than this. Its about siblings who have come from a god fearing background, where one of them was obviously abused, and the other saved them, causing some bizarre, almost incestuous bond between them.When they are separated, one turns psychotic, and the other forms a sort of fantasy world with Jay, and they refer to other people as their siblings names.Thanks to the winter setting, it's very claustrophobic, and each set piece is very intense, and slightly unsettling, as Bana portrays Eddison as a good person, but one who has a serious mental health problem, verging on psychosis.Wilde is at her best here, as another delusional person, but for her, her delusions are if the more sexual nature.Add a subplot involving Mara trying to get her dad to take her seriously as an officer of the law, you really get an interesting narrative on family life, and how small things can cause such a huge dysfunction.And oddity, but well worth trying out.