The quota of action, meant to be the big draw of the film, is too sporadic and too unimaginatively executed to thrill. You give up trying to find a deeper context about Ron as an antagonist soon enough, and choose to focus on the action drama that promises to unfold.ĭeadlock, however, is no Die Hard. It is tokenism though, and too half-baked a role to leave an impact. Although there is no ideological motive behind what he does, you spot a faint commentary about police violence. He does not flinch while bashing up cops but is sensitive towards a pregnant captive, so he is a villain with a heart. We first find him living in a house with an American flag on the front porch, so we are to assume he is a patriot. Rather, there is an effort to imagine him with a few redeeming features. Ron threatens to drown hundreds of thousands of innocents by opening the dam floodgates unless he gets a satisfactory police explanation regarding his son’s death in a shootout. The villain’s evil plan is driven by a personal tragedy. Cohn accommodates Sophia in the thick of action by writing the character in as one among the dam staff. On the other hand, Mack’s personal life tries borrowing its emotion quotient from the Die Hard films too - he shares a strained equation with ex-wife Sophia. There are also the inside men at the dam, to help Ron in his mission. Like the cabbie in Die Hard, the hero here gets a sidekick too, in the form of a novice security guard. The formulaic hostage setting apart, there are several stock situations that could remind you of the Die Hard films. Conveniently, and in classic Die Hard tradition, when the villains get into action, Mack happened to be unseen because he was working on a girder on the outer walls of the dam. Karr is a former Army Ranger and his presence amidst all the action is justified by the fact that he now works as a welder at the dam. That is when Ron and gang break into the area, and take the workers and students as hostage. A bunch of teenage students arrive for a field trip at the plant. The setting here is a hydroelectric dam and power plant in Georgia. In Deadlock, Cohn and co-writer Cam Cannon cast Willis as Ron Whitlock, who leads a group of terrorists to a typical course of action that every Die Hard villain has resorted to over the years. A highlight of Cohn’s films is the way he scores playing around with the essence of big-banner, big-budget themes, and reimagining them as So Bad It’s Good small projects - a reason he was probably signed on to direct this knock-off project. Cohn’s directorial career of little over a decade stands out for his many collaborations with The Asylum, the Hollywood indie film company that thrives on low-budget, direct-to-video productions. That idea becomes all the more obvious when you note Jared Cohn’s name as director in the credits. Rather, the game plan is evident: The action movie has a ready fan base anywhere in the world, so put together an identifiable face on the poster with an excuse of a script that allows set-piece violence within a tight budget. The effort here was clearly never to redefine genre basics of Hollywood action. The action drama rehashes numerous tropes that made the Willis-starrer action series a rage over five releases spanning decades, but very little of what goes on in Deadlock reveals an ambition to regale with original thrills. Thematically, the film does seem like a script idea that producers of the Die Hard franchise might have rejected. So the actor settles for the villain’s job in this film. Deadlock is a Die Hard knock-off but at 66, Willis probably seemed over the hill to reprise the John McClane stereotype. Deadlock belongs to the category but Willis’ role in the film reminds again that the superstar of yore on his own is no longer saleable enough as a hero - not even in a B-movie production. Is Willis out to do a Charles Bronson or Chuck Norris at this stage of his career? These stars made a career scoring with second-string actioners. Watching the B-movie action drama unfold in the film, an obvious question springs to mind. Deadlock is just one among Willis’ many recent sub-par releases to that end. ![]() The cold fact above would work as a quick review of Deadlock as well, besides underlining his new career strategy: When the offers dry up, flood the marquee with whatever project you can lay hands on and stay in the limelight. Clearly, quality of work or impact at box office are no longer important for Willis, once counted among the biggest stars in Hollywood. ![]() It is important to note that aspect to understand where the actor is coming from with his new film. Enthadaa Saji movie review: A vague script on divine intervention that desperately needed some John Wick: Chapter 4's OTT release: Lionsgate Play to exclusively premiere the blockbuster in India on June 23
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