The Eric Roberts Collection: Deadline (dir by Curt Hahn)

Posted on January 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the year 1993, a black teenager named Wallace Sampson was shot and murdered in the small town of Amos, Alabama. The murderer was never caught. In fact, according to most people in the town, the murder was never even really investigated. The town’s white leaders, many of whom were members of the Ku Klux Klan, swept the murder under the rug.

20 years later, Trey Hall (Lauren Jenkins) is determined to solve Wallace’s murder. Trey may be the daughter of the richest man in town but, as she puts it, she was practically raised by Wallace’s mother, Mary Pell Sampson (Jackie Welch). Mary Pell Sampson is the long-time maid of Trey’s father, Everett Hall (David Dwyer). When journalist Matt Harper (Steve Talley) comes down from Tennessee to do a story on another murder, Trey tells him that he should totally ditch the recent murder and instead investigate the older murder. Matt, who is currently in the process of being cancelled due to a poorly written headline, decides that he wants to investigate and report on the death of Wallace Sampson. His editor agrees, on the condition that he work with the older and more cynical Ronnie Bullock (Eric Roberts).

While investigating Wallace’s murder, Matt has to deal with his own very messy personal life. His fiancée, Delana (Anna Felix), wants to call off the wedding because Matt is too obsessed with work. His father (J.D. Souther) is dying of cancer but can still find the time to scold Matt for ending a sentence with a preposition. Finally, Matt is not happy about having work with Ronnie, who is an old school reporter who travels with a gun and who has little use for the demands of society. When Matt accuses Ronnie of being racist, Ronnie angrily corrects him. When Matt accuses Ronnie of being sexist, Ronnie just shrugs. It’s really the type of thing that only Eric Roberts could pull off.

Deadline is loosely based on a true story and it’s certainly a well-intentioned film. Unfortunately, the majority of the performances feel amateurish, the pace is rather slow, and the bad guys are so obviously evil that the film itself feels a bit cartoonish. (If only all murderers were as easy to pick out as they are in this film….) It suffers from the same problem that afflicts a lot of films about civil rights in the South, in that the black characters are often pushed to the background and left undeveloped while the film focuses on the nobility of rich white liberals. Again, the intentions are good but the execution leaves a bit to be desired.

That said, Eric Roberts is well-cast as Ronnie Bullock and, whenever he’s onscreen, he brings some much-needed energy to the film. In some ways, Ronnie is a cliché. He’s the cynical, politically incorrect journalist who, deep down, still believes in doing the right thing. But Roberts manages to bring some nuance to both the character and the film. The viewer will be happy every time that Roberts steps into a scene. Eric Roberts’s performance is the highlight of the film and the best reason to see Deadline.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Game Review: Deadline (1982, Infocom)

Posted on January 4, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

Wealthy industrialist Marshall Robner has been found dead in his study, with the door locked. The autopsy says that he died of an overdose of antidepressants. Was it suicide or was it murder? And, if it was murder, who was responsible? That’s the mystery that you’ve been given a limited amount of time to solve.

In Deadline, you play a police detective who has 12 hours to investigate and solve the mystery behind the death of Marshall Robson. The game starts with your arrival at the sprawling Robner estate. Do you immediately start interviewing the suspects or do you look for clues around the grounds? Do you attend the reading of Robner’s will or do you search the study where he died? It’s up to you but just remember that the clock is ticking!

Written by Marc Blank and released by Infocom, Deadline is a classic text adventure from 1982. From the minute, you enter the Robner estate, you are interacting with suspects like Robner’s adulterous wife and his irresponsible son. Their actions and their responses to your questions are determined by how you go about investigating the crime and one of the joys of the game is seeing how people react to different approaches. (When it comes time to read Robner’s will, one character will either show up early or late, depending on whether or not you’ve shown them a key piece of evidence.)

The mystery is complex. I played through the game a handful of times before realizing that one thing that I felt was very important was actually just a red herring. The mystery can be solved but you’re going to have to play the game several times and experiment with being in different places at different times and showing different clues to different suspects. Or you can just type “Deadline Walk-Through” into Google like I eventually did.

Like many other good games from the past, Deadline can currently be found in the Internet Archive.

The Walking Dead Writing Staff Changes

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Arleigh

Season One of The Walking Dead is just days away from concluding. The show has been a runaway hit for AMC. It’s ratings since the pilot premiered on Halloween night has tripled the numbers posted by AMC’s other critically-acclaimed hits like Mad Men and Breaking Bad. It’s showrunner in Frank Darabont with veteran Hollywood producer Gale Anne Hurd the show had the firepower to allow a basic cable network to take a chance on a tv series based on a long-running comic book series about survivors in a post-zombie apocalypse world.

With Season 2 already approved for a 13-episode pick-up the only question now is whether the show will be able to take the foundations laid by Darabont and his writers this first season and continue to improve on the product. This question may have just taken on a certain significance as Deadline has reported that Frank Darabont has fired all the writers of this first season and plans on writing the second season by himself with freelance writers being brought in to work on each episode’s scripts.

For a show that has garnered great reviews from critics and fans alike, not to mention ratings that it’s sister shows on the network could only wish for, this change in how the upcoming season would be written might just put the shadow of worry over it’s growing legion of fans.

For some, this news might seem like a panic move designed to placate the vocal minority of blog reviewers who have pointed out how the show’s writing didn’t pass muster after a powerful pilot episode. How the series’ first season seem to have a Jekyll and Hyde tone to it. One episode being great then the next just so-so. Could the negative criticism (some justified and others just criticism for criticism’s sake) have reached the heads of AMC and the show’s producers and a decision for a change was made off the cuff.

This report, if confirmed by Darabont and the network as true, does mean Darabont becomes the sole writer for the show with hired freelancers doctoring finished scripts then it could be a blessing for the show moving forward. There will now be a singular voice that will dictate how the show goes forward. Some will think this may just ruin the quality of the show not having a staff of established writers on-board like the first season had, but it’s those very same writers who the show’s detractors have been blaming for the show’s missed opportunity to create a brave new show on tv.

Also, it’s not such a rare thing to have a show written by one individual and for a series that’s really one long story with some very complicated subplots thrown. Having that one writer could keep things from getting too confusing. It could also solve the up and down nature of the episode quality.

AMC, hasn’t stated that the show will not have a staff of writers. There’s a chance that Darabont will hire both freelance and series writers to help smooth the transition from Season One to Season Two. The good thing is that the network and the producers pretty much have 11 months to decide on exactly how to proceed.

Source: Deadline