(Review originally written at 15 October 2008)

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Please pay attention film-makers, this is NOT how you should make a movie.

While "Deadbolt" is hardly the worst movie I've ever seen, I just can't exactly call it a good or effective one either. It hardly has any good ideas of its own and it uses a bad build-up, which just never pays off in the end.

It's obvious that this movie got made for TV. It has this typical look and atmosphere over it, which a movie just has never ever benefited from. It's also painfully obviously that the movie just didn't had the most talented people involved in the creation process. Both the acting and the directing is really lacking, as well as the story obviously.

Besides the fact the story is hardly anything original and is something that has been done a lot better in earlier genre movies, the movie also has some real problems with its build up and logic. The build up is simply far too slow and basically nothing good or interesting is happening in the movie its first 30 minutes. After that the thriller elements more or less start to kick in but again, it doesn't use a good enough build up for this to consider this movie a successful or effective genre piece. The movie just never becomes tense, also since you just simply couldn't care less for any of the characters, which is mostly due to the acting performances from its actors.

Justine Bateman is just not the kind of actress you should give the main lead. She is good enough for small bits in TV-series but letting her carry an entire thriller movie on her own is a very bad idea. Sometimes I like Adam Baldwin in his roles but main problem with Baldwin (no relation to the Baldwin brothers) is that ever since his "Full Metal Jacket" he thinks he can just play a psycho in every movie and that he can get away with just everything. Granted that he always gets typecast a lot though. He plays his role in this movie far to over-the-top, which just doesn't make his character really believable and therefore the movie as a whole also just doesn't quite work out as intended.

The movie also just didn't always made quite sense to me. So you turn into an obsessive and murderous psychopath when your wife commits suicide? And after you've been locked up for 5 weeks, with very little food and water, by a man who has murdered your ex-husband, your best friend and your roommate-to-be, all you worry about is what the police is going to think? Some things within this movie just didn't made much sense, which also made this movie quite ridicules in parts.

It's also of course a fairly predictable movie, also since it just isn't the most renewing or original one around. It's the kind of movie of which you just know in advance how each scene is going to end and how's going to live or die and how and when.

You're simply better off not watching this little unknown TV movie thriller.

4/10

(Review originally written at 8 March 2008)

Some moments of boredom and some interesting moments, that is the best way to describe "Cohen and Tate".

The movie didn't started off all that bad but from the moment on when the movie becomes a road-movie, the movie sort of sleeps in. Only a few moments know to keep your interest. Because it's a road movie, the movie is more or less more of the same all the time and becomes a bit tiresome to watch at moments.

Problem is that there are too many moments were too little is happening. All the characters do at those moments are talking but the characters themselves just aren't good and interesting enough to grab your interest, despite the good work from the actors themselves.

Especially Roy Scheider did a good job in his role of aging and halve deaf hit-men. Adam Baldwin does what he can do best, playing a psycho. Really, would he had gotten this part if he hadn't played Animal Mother in "Full Metal Jacket"? His acting is still lacking but he did a good job though.

It was a pretty good idea to let the kid set up the two hit-men against each other but it isn't really conceived good enough into the movie and besides, it's just not really believable, since a plan such as that needs subtlety and patience. Some things an 9 year old just neither has, especially not when he is on his way of getting killed.

Still pretty amazing to see how much talent got involved with this production. Victor J. Kemper's cinematography is really great at times and the movie features a couple of interesting compositions, that should remind you of the '70's style of film-making. Perhaps there also lays a problem. The movie tries to be too much like a '70's movie in its pace. dialog, action and basically everything else. Bill Conti's musical score is also sort of funny though, since it sounds like it was composed for a much better movie. The score is overblown at times, when there is basically very little happening on the actual screen.

It's still an OK movie to watch but by no means a great movie or one worth searching out.

6/10