What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than by watching Deadfall, a movie that is amazingly overacted from the entire cast – save Sissy Spacek as June, the mother of Jay, a former boxer recently released from prison and soon to go back for accidentally killing Ronnie, his former promoter who “tipped off the boxing commission” that Jay had taken a fall in order to get a shot at the title The logic of this subterfuge is a bit wonky in that taking a fall to a lesser opponent would hardly move someone up the ranks, but I suppose we’ve been indoctrinated to believe that all boxing-related politicking is corrupt. But let me back up.
Because of Jay’s transgression, his father Chet (Kris Kristofferson), a sadistic former sheriff who would prefer to let a criminal on the run “freeze to death” and “let the coyotes get him,” disowns him, prophesying a rather uncomfortable turkey dinner – and this is before Addison (Eric Bana) and Liza (Olivia Wilde), two criminals on the run from their recent heist of a casino, are miraculously brought back together by kismet and coincidence over Thanksgiving dinner.
Deadfall starts well – although a bit melodramatically – as Liza counts money in the back of a Crown Victoria while Addison informs the driver (their presumed third partner in the heist) of his rather wacky views on childhood, et al. The getaway is clean until nature intervenes and throws a nervous buck into the middle of the snowy back road, causing the car to tumble an incredible number of times, killing the driver, tossing the money about, and forcing Liza and Addison to flee the scene – only after Addison kills a police officer who sees the crash and comes to investigate.
Deciding to take separate paths to the Canadian border, Addison heads to the woods to survive like Daniel Day Lewis preparing for Last of the Mohicans while Liza – replete with short, sparkly dress and high heels – trudges along the road in a blizzard until a kind Samaritan stops to give her a ride. And, the Samaritan is Jay. A Thanksgiving miracle!
As Liza warms in Jay’s truck – the memory of Addison’s (her brother’s) last kiss on her lips – Addison treks through the woods, momentarily leaving behind his incestuous relationship with his sister, attacks an older man trying to start his snowmobile, gets his pinky finger sliced off (by the same older man), and commandeers a vehicle before stopping outside of cabin as the sun sets. Within, a drunken stepfather (just in case you were scared the cliché well has run dry) threatens to kill his wife, her daughter, and their baby.
Here, a softer side of Addison inorganically emerges, and he rescues the family by shooting the old man, proclaiming himself to be “an angel come down from the storm to remove that man from your life.” Of course, this is not the first father he killed; rather, he killed his own father, who was “a monster, an animal.” Thus, the intimate connection with Liza is limned, and we are supposed to be torn between their love for one another and the dysfunctional family that pushed both of them to criminality.
But we’re not, because the trope throughout is so heavy handed that each player in this film becomes a cartoon, cardboard cutout of personality.
Clearly, Liza will fall deeply in love with Jay in the span of thirty-six hours as they proceed to have sex in a motel, in which she asks Jay to pretend to “be somebody else,” before saying “fuck me Addison” – just in case you didn’t pick up on the incestuous foreshadowing before.
Eventually, Addison must leave his role as the “angel” and flee from a new set of police chasing after him. This troop is led by Hanna (Kate Mara), who wants to “finally get out of this shithole” and who happens to be the daughter of the rather misogynistic sheriff, who never treats him like on of his boys, because, if he did, then he “would believe in” her. But, he doesn’t, so he won’t, and her entry into the FBI is her ticket away from this oppressive existence.
As Addison flees and Liza makes her way to Jay’s family’s home for Thanksgiving, their meeting is inevitable since their house is the only one in between them and Canada.
And, if you hadn’t picked up on it through the first hour and twenty minutes or so, the major subtext of Deadfall is family dysfunction and a wacky discourse on nature versus nurture. I’m not going to try to decipher the rather convoluted conversation going on; I would rather point out the Eric Bana is an incredible antagonist, and I use “incredible” in the sense that it is hard to believe he could be an antagonist.
In part, the issue might be the screenplay. Deadfall lamely attempts to create a psychological war at the dinner table with Addison as its general. As he sits at the head – with one good hand and a shotgun in the other – he asks everyone to state what they’re thankful for. I understand it’s Thanksgiving, and clearly dirty laundry has to be aired, but Bana’s nasally condescension is less Hannibal Lecter and more Jafar from Aladdin. The subterfuge is not intelligent; it’s pedestrian. The outcome is foreseeable, and the conclusion illogical.
If you’re sitting down to dinner, be thankful that you avoided Deadfall.
