Deadfall Reviews
Top CriticLike all over-ambitious B-movies, this features solid performances by a mix of seasoned talent and promising young actors, all of whom deserve better.
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| Original Score: 2/5
Despite a super-dark noir plot and respectable cast, "Deadfall" is a thriller that never quite delivers on its promise.
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| Original Score: 2/4
It's sort of like "Fargo," only with a higher body count and without the wood chipper.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
This is the sort of movie best encountered accidentally and for free, caught on basic cable late at night.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
There's nothing you haven't seen before - and better - in "Deadfall," which would seem to appeal mostly to fans of snowmobile chases.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
Dean and Ruzowitzky want both inexorably tightening plot and keen psychology here, and they can't always have it both ways.
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| Original Score: 2/4
A genre characterized by often grisly violence, high style and a distinctly nihilistic outlook.
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| Original Score: 3/4
At times it is riveting stuff and at times ridiculous.
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| Original Score: 2.5/5
[An] atmospheric, suspenseful, snowbound crime thriller with a creepy, sexy undertow ...
"Deadfall" brings to mind those dark, old-fashioned entertainments in rotation on Turner Classic Movies that suck you in with their genre machinery, sullen beauties and despair.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Watching this violent potboiler is like observing a thief knock off a convenience store, then seeing him lock his keys in the car.
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| Original Score: 2/5
An A-list cast fights a B-movie script and goes down hard in "Deadfall," a wintry suspense melodrama that's not quite awful enough to be any fun.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
For Ruzowitzky, Deadfall seems nothing more than work for hire.
[It has] enough plot contrivances and twisted, twinned destinies for any old movie, though not necessarily a good one.
Looks great but sacrifices much in its charge towards a final showdown that's been telegraphed from the early going.
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| Original Score: 2/4
'Deadfall' deftly transforms the climactic moments ... therapeutic for some, devastating for others. It's a beautiful thing.
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
There isn't much to the characters in this morose thriller.
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| Original Score: C
The camera work is as beautiful as it is terrifying, with Quebec standing in for northern Michigan in the dead of winter. And the performances are resourceful, superbly etched and expertly nuanced.
Deadfall just isn't manic enough to be memorable.
Ruzowitzky may be an occasionally interesting visual stylist, but storytelling-wise, his second English-language effort couldn't be more stillborn.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
The most disappointing aspect of Deadfall is its conventionality. For a thriller, it's light on surprises.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Deadfall is slicker and more compelling than its overdetermined script has any right to expect.
A highly satisfying Western-cum-noir in the old tradition.
