The Eric Roberts Collection: Enemies Among Us (dir by Dan Garcia)

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Normally, I’d never celebrate the idea of the hero of a movie being wrongly sent to prison in a state that is rather aggressive in its use of the death penalty but Devin Taylor (Griffin Hood), the hero of 2010’s Enemies Among Us, was so annoying that I found myself hoping he would never get out of jail.

Enemies Among Us is a low-budget film about many different things. Sen. Fred Edmonds (Steven Bauer) of North Carolina is about to accept his party’s presidential nomination and most of the polls show him far in the lead. Senator Edmonds is planning on naming Louisiana Governor Chip Majors (James DuMont) as his running mate because this film takes place in a world where presidential nominees don’t try to balance their ticket by picking someone from a different region or from a swing state. When we see Sen. Edmonds, he’s being interrogated by a journalist named Gretna (Tammi Arender), who is upset over campaign finance laws. We’re meant to dislike Edmonds but Gretna is written and performed as being such a caricature of a shrill left-winger that we actually start to feel bad for Sen. Edmonds. LEAVE HIM ALONE, GRETNA!

Meanwhile, Gov. Majors has just murdered the prostitute that he was visiting in the same hotel where, in a few hours, he’s supposed to host a major fundraiser. The prostitute tried to kill the governor first but still, murder is murder. However, the governor offers to pay off two members of his security details, Devin and Cobbs (Eric Roberts). Cobbs is enthusiastic about the idea and seems to find them whole thing to be rather amusing. Devin is conflicted but he goes with the plan …. for a while.

Meanwhile, Cobb’s ex-wife Goloria (Robin Givens) is a CIA interrogator who is torturing a terrorist named Jassim (Armando Leduc) in an effort to lean when the next big terrorist attack is planned. Jassim taunts her, saying that Americans don’t understand why the rest of the world hates them. The torture leads Jassim to have a bizarre hallucination, in which he makes out with Gloria and rambles on about the sorry state of humanity.

Meanwhile, Agent Graham (Billy Zane) hangs out in bars and …. well, he really doesn’t do much beyond act like Billy Zane.

Wow, what an annoying movie. Enemies Among Us is one of those films that wants to tackle all of the important subjects but it approaches politics with all of the nuance and imagination of a college freshman who has just read Howard Zinn for the first time and is now convinced that he has all the answers. There’s not a subtle moment to be found in Enemies Among Us and the scene where Devin starts yelling about how Americans deserve honesty is so clumsily handled that you’ll find yourself laughing more than nodding along.

That said …. Eric Roberts is in this! Roberts doesn’t get a lot of screentime and his character is given an unceremonious exit from the film but he’s still the film’s highlight. Roberts spends the entire film smiling. Even the discovery that the governor has murdered the prostitute cannot wipe that smile off of Roberts’s face. It’s a bizarre performance but at least it’s entertaining. It’s the type of performance that will remind viewers of why they love Eric Roberts, even in films like this.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

September Positivity: A Town Called Parable (dir by Scott Hester)

Posted on September 2, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2021’s A Town Called Parable, Eric Roberts plays Reverend John Corell. He’s a pastor who lives in a small frontier town called Parable. It’s a town that’s full of gunslingers, gamblers, and businessmen. It’s the Old West, as long as you’re willing to overlook the fact that most of the characters have modern haircuts and wear clothes that look like they were purchased from the neighborhood costume shop.

John Corell is having a crisis of faith, due to the fact that some gunslingers gunned down his brother in the middle of the night. Corell is not sure how he can possibly be expected to forgive the men that killed his brother. He wants revenge but he knows that seeking revenge will mean rejecting everything that he believes in.

Now, to be honest, the idea of Eric Roberts playing a morally conflicted, old west preacher-turned-gunfighter actually does have some potential and I was totally looking forward to the sight of Roberts walking down a dusty street and demanding that his enemies “Draw!” Unfortunately, the majority of that potential is unrealized. The film only runs for a little over 70 minutes and most of Eric Roberts’s scenes feature him performing a monologue in his church. As Corell speaks, he remembers things that have happened to other citizens of Parable. Needless to say, there’s a lesson to be found in every flashback. The town isn’t called Parable for nothing.

For instance, Corell remembers the starving man who kept knocking at everyone’s door until he finally found someone willing to give him some food. He remembers the widow who kept demanding that the sheriff do something about the men who killed her husband and how she refused to stop demanding until justice was served. He also remembers the drunken employee who was forgiven once by his employer but who didn’t change his ways and who was savagely beaten as a result. (His wife and child were also sold to the highest bidder …. YIKES!) The stories all roughly correspond to a Biblical parable but, at the same time, they don’t offer up much of a solution as to what Corell should do when the men who killed his brother gather outside of his church.

It’s a disappointing film and one that does not take advantage of the presence of Eric Roberts. I mean, if you can actually convince Eric Roberts to spend more than day on your set, you need to do something more with him than just have him pace around one location. Fortunately, there are other Eric Roberts westerns out there that make better use of his unique talents.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

June Positivity: Worth: The Testimony of Johnny St. James (dir by Jenn Page)

Posted on June 10, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2012, Worth is a film about a hostage situation.

Ugh.

Listen, I’m just going to be honest with you here. With a few obvious exceptions (i.e., Dog Day Afternoon), I am not a huge fan of films about hostage situations. It doesn’t matter how talented the cast may be or how much the director tries to keep things interesting. Usually, as soon as the hostage taker pulls that gun and yells, “Nobody move!,” whatever narrative momentum that the film may have had going comes to a screeching halt and thing proceed to get very stagey. The audience is expected to sit through at least 90 minutes of wailing hostages, feverish monologues, and Stockholm syndrome. And, of course, we can’t forget the SWAT team threatening to kill both the hostage taker and the hostages while a harried negotiator tries to bring everything to a peaceful solution. It’s all very predictable and usually a bit tedious to sit through.

Worth is also a film about alcoholics so double ugh. I’m not a huge fan of alcoholics or films where people spend all of their time giving speeches about why they started drinking and what happened to make them hit rock bottom. Don’t get me wrong. There’s been a lot of great films made about alcoholism but there’s also been a lot of films that seem to exist to remind us of just how whiny alcoholics can be. Mixing alcoholics and hostages is rarely a good thing.

On the plus side, Worth has got Eric Roberts in it. No, Roberts does not play the hostage taker. Nor does he play one of the hostages. Roberts ends up with the unenviable task of having to negotiate with the hostage taker. Eric Roberts’s role is not a big one. One gets the feeling that it probably took two days (maybe three) for him to shoot all of his scenes. Still, his role here is bigger (and more important) than his role in Amityville Death House.

Worth’s main character is Johnny St. James (Jeffrey Johnson), a former seminarian who ended up becoming a cop. Ten years ago, Johnny’s pregnant wife was killed by a drunk driver and Johnny himself has been an alcoholic ever since. Johnny is finally ready to attend his first AA meeting and his friend and partner, Hickey (Eric Roberts), tags along for moral support. While Johnny is inside the church for the meeting, Hickey is the one who waits in the car and calls into headquarters and tells the chief that Johnny’s at an emergency dental appointment.

Unfortunately, Johnny discovers that the AA meeting is being led by Earl (Vincent Irizarry), the man who was driving the car that struck and killed Johnny’s wife. Earl did several years in prison and became a minister during his time behind bars. Earl may not recognize Johnny but Johnny automatically knows who Earl is. Johnny sits in the back of the church, listening as the other members of the group give their testimony. After listening to Chad (Corey Feldman) talk about how difficult it is to be sober, Johnny snaps, pull out his gun, and — ugh — the hostage situation begins.

The movie starts out well, with both Eric Roberts and Vincent Irizarry offering up strong supporting performances. I mean, even Corey Feldman isn’t that bad. But as soon as Johnny pulls that gun and starts shouting and bullying everyone and barking out orders, the film turns into a bit of an endurance test. There’s only so much time that someone can spend listening to one guy yell at people about not moving before mentally checking out. Johnny traps himself in that church as soon as he pulls that gun but the film also traps itself by not leaving itself anywhere else to go. Johnny has a tragic backstory and the film does share an important message about the power of forgiveness but Johnny himself was such an annoying character than even I wanted the SWAT team to storm the church and take that douchebag out.

Worth was no Dog Day Afternoon.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Collection: Amityville Death House (dir by Mark Polonia)

Posted on June 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Eric Roberts is The Warlock!

If you’re specifically watching the 2015 film, Amityville Death House, because of the presence of Eric Roberts (and seriously, who could blame you?), Roberts appears about four minutes into the film. His first scene lasts about 50 seconds. He pops up a few more times throughout the film and, each time, he’s onscreen for, at most, 20 seconds. Every time that he appears, he is sitting in a room that has been decorated to look like a dungeon. He never interacts with anyone in the cast and, indeed, it’s easy to tell that this is another one of these films where he did all of his scenes in one day and probably didn’t even have to leave his house. He wears a mask throughout the entire film but there’s no mistaking his voice.

Amityville Death House takes place in the town of Amityville, New York and it features a house that looks like a smaller version of the infamous haunted house that appears in most of the other Amityville films. That said, there’s not any reference to the supposed hauntings or the DeFeo murders or any of the other usual Amityville plot points. Instead, this film deals with the spirit of a 17th century witch named Abigail, who was lynched by the inhabitants of Amityville. Eric Roberts plays the Warlock who, for reasons that are never quite clear, hopes to bring Abigail’s spirit back into the realm of the living.

When Tiffany (Kyrsten St. Pierre) comes up to Amityville to check in on her grandmother (Yolie Canales), she finds Abigail’s old diary and realizes that her grandmother lives in Abigail’s former home. Tiffany even reads aloud from the diary, which is not good news for her friends, Aric (Michael Merchant), Bree (Cassandra Hayes), and Dig (Houston Baker). Her friends were just traveling with Abigail to help her out at her grandmother’s place. They certainly weren’t expecting to end up under a witch’s curse thanks to Tiffany’s stupidity.

Even with a running time of just 75 minutes, Amityville Death House is a painfully slow film. Scenes play out with no sense of pace or suspense and the characters are all paper thin. The final ten minutes of the film are enjoyably weird, with the characters suffering from hallucinations, one person turning into a spider, and dialogue like, “She has the witch’s teats!” But it takes such a long time for the movie to reach that point and there’s so much unnecessary padding on the way that many viewers will probably check out before getting to experience any of that.

On the plus side, though, Eric Roberts at least sounded like he was having fun.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Previous TSL Amityville Reviews:

Retro Television Reviews: Dark Angel (dir by Robert Iscove)

Posted on May 28, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1996’s Dark Angel! It can be viewed on YouTube!

Eric Roberts is Walter D’Arcangelo!

Walter was raised in the Louisiana foster system and eventually a series of Catholic orphanages. With a last name like D’Arcangenlo, it’s hard not to feel that Walter was destined to eventually become an eccentric homicide detective who does things his way and that’s exactly what happened. After starting his career in Baton Rouge, Walter has recently transferred to New Orleans. He arrives just in time to help investigate a series of gruesome murders, the victims of which are all women who cheated on their husbands. Walter even starts to get phone calls from someone who claims to be the murderer.

Unfortunately, for Walter, he’s somehow become a suspect in the murders. The rest of the homicide division doesn’t quite know what to make of the somewhat nervy Walter. When they discover that he went missing for several months while working in Baton Rouge, that makes him even more suspicious in the eyes of his new colleagues. Even while she personally is falling for him, Detective Anna St. Cyr (Ashley Crow) investigates Walter’s past and discovers that Walter does indeed have a link to the murders but not in a way that anyone was expecting.

Dark Angel was clearly intended to be a pilot for a weekly detective show. I imagine that Detective D’Arcangelo would have spent every week investigating a different murder in New Orleans. The show is full of moments that don’t have much to do with the case but which seem to have been included to make viewers say, “Wow, Eric Roberts is a really interesting guy! I wish he was starring in TV series that I could watch every Tuesday night!” Roberts does give a pretty good performance as Walter, hinting that, even if he isn’t a killer, the detective is still someone who could snap at any minute. Roberts plays Walter as if Walter himself is a little bit scared of the darkness that’s lurking inside of him. Walter’s an interesting character, though one gets the feeling that the demands of a weekly show would have led to the character becoming a bit less enigmatic if Dark Angel had been turned into a series.

The film takes place in New Orleans and it’s somewhat shameless about indulging in every “Big Easy” cliché possible. Yes, Walter listens to jazz. Yes, there are scenes of rain and shots where the steamy humidity seems to be rising from the French Quarter. Yes, Walter visits a voodoo priestess and yes, there’s even a scene set during Mardi Gras. Though there’s nothing unexpected about the show’s portrayal of New Orleans, the pilot does do a good job of capturing the city’s unique atmosphere. Eric Roberts and New Orleans feel like a perfect match,

Of course, Dark Angel did not become a series. Still, the pilot is entertaining and Eric Roberts gives another memorable performance. Dark Angel is a enjoyably macabre diversion.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Collection: Joker’s Poltergeist (dir by Christopher S. Lind)

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2020’s Joker’s Poltergeist (also known as Joker’s Wild), Eric Roberts plays James Jennings. Jennings was a part-owner of the Palace Theater Chain until his partner, Rand Place (Martin Kove), forced him out and gave the business to his daughter, Aurora Place (Lacie Marie Meyer). After apparently filming himself discussing how he is going to be starting a movement and how no one is ever going to forget him, James dresses up like a clown, goes down to the theater, and guns down the audience of a film called Joker’s Wild. He also kills Rand before being shot himself by another theatergoer, William Remmington (Ari Boyland).

Clips of James’s final message are shown throughout Joker’s Poltergeist but we never actually see Roberts interacting with the rest of the cast. (When James starts shooting people at the theater, he does so under a mask that he never removes and the end credits indicate that an actor other than Roberts played James in those scenes.) This is obviously one of those films where Roberts filmed his scenes over the course of an hour or two, probably in his own office. He certainly wasn’t on the set. The same can be said of Martin Kove, who only appears as a part of a video message that Rand taped for Aurora before the shooting. For that matter, Dustin Diamond appears for a few brief seconds and again, only as a part of a filmed message that Aurora watches.

Instead, the majority of the film takes place a year after the shooting. Aurora is fighting to not only re-open her theater but to also keep concealed carry legal in her state. She is now dating William and is a part of a support group made up of other survivors of the massacre. From the moment Aurora reenters the old theater, she starts to have strange visions of killer clowns, demonic doctors, and sleazy politicians. “You shouldn’t like guns….” the evil doctors chant at her. At one point, she and her friends are trapped in the theater and being taunted by the spirits of the dead and, at another point, Aurora is suddenly in a hospital and being menaced by killer nurses. Aurora struggles to figure out what is real and what is a dream, with the film suggesting that theater itself has become a separate dimension that is populated by James’s victims. At its best, the film plays out like an unsettling nightmare, the type that doesn’t necessarily cause you to wake up screaming but which still remains fresh in your mind throughout the day.

On the one hand, the film is obviously based on the 2012 Dark Knight Rises shooting that it feels more than a little distasteful. On the other hand, the film is intriguingly surreal and Lacie Marie Meyer gives a really good performance as Aurora. (Yes, it would appear that she was named after Aurora, Colorado, which is one reason why the film feels so distasteful even though it has a handful of effective moments.) The film does attempt to say something about guns, with Aurora being a proponent of the 2nd amendment and the gun-grabbing mayor and his wife being behind the efforts to tear down the theater. It’s hard to really say which side the film comes down on, though I think it’s ultimately more pro-gun control than anything else. That said, the film’s portrayal of the mayor and his wife as being vapid politicians who want to keep their own guns while taking away everyone else’s felt true to life.

Joker’s Poltergeist is ultimately a bit too icky and exploitive to really work but it still has its moments. It’s a movie that keeps you guessing, if nothing else.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Collection: Free Lunch Express (dir by Lenny Britton)

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Eric Roberts appears about twenty minutes into 2020’s Free Lunch Express. He plays a man standing in line at a Vermont welfare office. He tells a youngish Bernie Sanders (played, at that point in the movie, by Sam Brittan) that the easiest way to make some extra money is to run for public office because there’s no limit on the amount of money you can raise and you can keep whatever you have left after the campaign. Having been recently kicked out of a commune and having no interest in getting a real job, Sanders is intrigued by the advice and soon embarks on his first political campaign. Roberts only appears in that one scene. It probably took an hour or two of his time to film. Roberts spends the entire scene laughing, supposedly because he’s amused over the idea of making a living as a perennial political candidate.

(For that matter, Eric Roberts is not the only familiar face to pop up in Free Lunch Express. Not surprisingly, Kevin Sorbo shows up. He plays the ghost of George Washington and I’ll admit that I chucked at his Elizabeth Warren joke. Far more surprisingly, Malcolm McDowell shows up as the narrator and epically rolls his eyes at every major moment of Sanders’s life.)

As for the rest of the film, Free Lunch Express is an attempt to do an Adam McKay-style satire about the career of Bernie Sanders. Unfortunately, the problem with trying to make fun of Bernie Sanders is that even Bernie’s most fervent supporters already realize and often acknowledge that he’s a vaguely ludicrous figure. Indeed, the very things that the film pokes fun at — like Bernie’s permanently messy hair, his thick Brooklyn accent, his habit of yelling out his comments while pointing upwards, and his apparently inability to make normal small talk — are the same things that most of his supporters find to be appealing about him. I disagree with Bernie on the majority of the issues and I would probably move to another country if he was ever elected President but, at the same time, I can’t help but kind of like him. One reason why so many people voted for him in 2016 is because he seemed to be authentic in a way that other politicians did not. It’s easy to poke fun at a slick politician but it’s far more difficult to do so at someone who looks like he just got out of bed and who tends to say whatever pops into his mind. It’s far easier to satirize the personality of a Hillary Clinton or a Mitt Romney than it is to satirize a Bernie Sanders.

Free Lunch Express follows Bernie through three stages of his life. As a child, Bernie (played by Jonah Britton) swears a blood oath while standing in front of a poster Joseph Stalin and he declares that he’ll never be bullied again. As a young man, Bernie (Sam Brittan) moves to Vermont and annoys all the other hippies to such an extent that he’s forced to take Eric Roberts’s advice and run for political office. And, as an old and ineffective Senator, Bernie (now played by Charles Hutchins) runs for the presidency and only drops out after Hillary (Cynthia Kania) promises to campaign in Wisconsin and Ohio in the general election. There were a few moments that made me chuckle, like the portrayal of Ben & Jerry as being two hippies who can’t have a conversation without shouting out the name of their latest flavor or Bernie cluelessly traveling to dreary Moscow for the worst honeymoon ever. But, for the most part, the humor falls flat and the jokes are often too repetitive to really be effective. Having a young and nerdy Bernie swear his allegiance to Stalin because he thinks that Stalin, who killed millions of his own citizens, will create a world without bullies is funny. However, having the ghost of Stalin randomly speak to Bernie throughout the years is a joke that grows tiresome and never really pays off. It’s pretty much the same issue that I had with Adam McKay’s Vice. Much as Vice did with Dick Cheney, the film tries so hard to take down Sanders with ridicule that it instead makes him seem almost likable. Indeed, by focusing on the times that Bernie was, in the film’s view, humiliated by Hillary Clinton, the hippies at the commune, and basic economic realities, the film actually portrays Bernie as someone who refuses to surrender his principles, regardless of how often the rest of the world tells him that he’s wrong. The film aims to be Tartuffe and instead turns into Candide.

Finally, on a personal note, I think anyone who ever runs for office should be ridiculed, regardless of what they believe or whether or not they’ve done a good job. It’s a good way to keep them honest and to remind theme that they’re supposed to work for us and not the other way around. If one’s beliefs can’t survive a joke or two, that says far more about the beliefs than it does about the jokes.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

March Positivity: This Is Our Time (dir by Lisa Arnold)

Posted on March 18, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2013 film, This Is Our Time, opens with a college graduation and a voice-over from Ethan (Shawn Culin-Young), who explains that everyone goes through four stages when they go to college. The first stage is being excited about getting away from home and being on you own. The second and third stages are about settling down, choosing your major, and maybe meeting the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. The fourth stage is all about looking forward to graduation and finally getting to enter the real world.

This Is Our Time follows the story of five friends as they discover what comes after the fourth stage. For two of them, it’s making a living as corporate workers and being pressured to behave unethically. For two others, it’s marriage and a new life working as missionaries in India, ministering to the needs of leprosy sufferers and their children. For Ethan, it means giving up his dream of being a writer and working as a waiter at his father’s bar. But, as Ethan warns us in his narration, one of the five is not going to be alive in a year. The movie follows the friends as they deal with death and try to learn how to live.

Some of the acting is a bit stiff and the attempt to capture the feel of corporate America feels rather comical. (Erik Estrada glowers his way through the role of a dishonest executive.) But, at the same time, the film does end with a message from the founder of Embrace a Village, which actually does provide support for people dealing with Leprosy and the guy is so sincere that it kind of makes you feel guilty for all the snarky thoughts that you had while watching the movie. Whatever else you might want to say about the film, the intentions are good and there’s something to be said for that.

Add to that, Eric Roberts is in the film. Roberts plays Ethan’s father and he brings a lot of genuine emotion to the role. The scene where he breaks down behind the bar in response to having gotten some bad news is well-done. Roberts is kind of famous for accepting almost any role that’s offered to him and he’s said that he hasn’t actually watched the majority of the films in which he’s appeared. Who knows if Roberts actually watched this film but, regardless, his performance was definitely the highlight.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Eric Roberts Collection: Road to the Open (dir by Cole Claassen)

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2014’s Road to the Open, Eric Roberts and John Schneider play, respectively, Tim and Rob Gollant.

The Gollant brothers are wealthy, smug, and athletic. At the local country club, they’re not only the best golf players but also the best tennis players. They’re the type who taunt their opponents while they’re losing. No one really likes the Gollant brothers but people put up with them because the Gollant brothers are extremely rich. When they tell you to get off of their bench at the club, it’s because it really is their bench. Their names are literally on the bench.

The Gollant Brothers aren’t exactly likeable but they are fun to watch, specifically because they’re played by John Schneider and Eric Roberts. Roberts and Schneider give perfect performances as two men who have never actually had to grow up. They’re the type of overage high school bullies who wouldn’t stand a chance in the real world but who, fortunately, can spend all of their time hiding out at their country club.

Of course, the Gollants are not the heroes of Road to the Open. Instead, they’re the obstacle standing in the way of Jerry McDonald (Troy McKay) and Miles Worth (Philip DeVova). Jerry and Miles are lifelong friends who enjoy playing tennis together. Overweight, balding, and mild-mannered, Jerry is not a typical athlete and he knows it. Haunted by the death of his wife and raising his daughter on his own, Jerry doesn’t so much fear losing as much as he fears letting everyone down. Miles, meanwhile, is a typical athlete, right down to the anger management issues. Fortunately, Miles has been seeing a somewhat eccentric therapist (Judd Nelson) and he may have finally learned how to control his temper.

There’s a lot of tennis in Road to the Open but, ultimately, it’s about Jerry and Miles’s friendship and Jerry trying to find the strength to move on with his life. Even though he meets and falls in love with Sam (Michelle Gunn), Jerry still feels as if he’s betraying the memory of his wife and, at times, he feels guilty for feeling any sort of happiness. There’s a lot of comedy to be found in Road to the Open but, ultimately, this film is a heartfelt and rather sweet testament to friendship and love. It’s also a well-acted film, with McKay, DeVova, and Gunn bringing a lot of likable energy to their roles.

I watched Road to the Open on Tubi. It turned out to be a nice surprise.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

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.