Deadfall.

This is a movie where Australian actor Eric Bana really nails the part of the homicidal maniac, Addison, a killer who lets nothing or no one stand in his way after a botched escape following a robbery with his sister Liza (the beautiful Olivia Wilde who you will remember as model Suzy Miller in Rush (2013)). The opening scene involves a brilliantly staged car crash in the ice and snow which some how the siblings manage to survive, Addison kills a State Trooper who stumbles on the crash and he and his sister go on the run, each going there own separate way.

Directed by the Oscar nominated Austrian director and screenwriter Stefan Ruzowitzky and written by Zach Dean, Deadfall (2012) boast’s a strong cast. As well as Bana and Wilde we have English actor Charlie Hunnam as the ex-boxer Jay Mills who has been just finished a prison sentence for fixing a fight.  When he goes to collect the money he’s owed for ‘staying down’ he gets into a brawl with his ex-coach and has to make a quick exit after he thinks he’s killed the man. Sissy Spacek and Kris Kristofferson play June and Chet Mills, Jay’s parents who live in a large remote family house virtually on the Canadian border. Kate Mara plays the local deputy Sheriff, Hannah, friend of the Mills family who June has invited to Thanksgiving. One gets the impression quite early on in the film that all roads lead to this family home!

The brother....

 

.... the sister.

The cold icy landscape becomes one more character in this ultra violent thriller, a cross between a dark modern day noir and a western on snowmobiles. The script’s central theme appears to be ‘the family’, or should I say that it attempts to defy the American assumption that family is something that’s always perfect! Firstly the siblings have a borderline incestuous relationship that probably started when Addison killed their abusive father to save his sister from his drunken advances. Although Jay’s parents appear to have a loving relationship, Chet has no time for his son. This effective B-movie with an A-list cast is enjoyable up to a point but certainly lacks the thrust of Fargo (1996), which the critics have compared it to. But saying that I think its still worth a look.