Deadbolt starts with Alec Danz (Adam Baldwin) taking a a fully prepared breakfast on a tray upstairs to his girlfriend Katherine (Dominique Perreault) only to discover her lying in the bath & having slit her wrists... Marty Hiller (Justine Bateman) has everything going for her, she is a 3rd year med student & has a good research job to pay the bills, she is young, attractive & has her whole life to look forward to. However one day that all changes when she discovers that her flat has been broken into & decides to let her spare room out to a man to help pay the rent & for some protection, at first Marty agrees to let the room to Phillip Berrin (Mark Camacho) over Alec but Marty gets a call to say that Phillip has been murdered so she lets Alec take the room after all. At first things go well but it soon transpires that Alec is a psycho who just wants to be with someone & the someone he has chosen is the unlucky Marty whose life begins to fall apart because of Alec's plans but the worse is yet to come as Alec will go to homicidal lengths to win Marty over...
This Canadian production was directed by Douglas Jackson I have to admit I quite liked it. The script by Frank Rehwaldt & Mara Trafficante moves along at a fair pace & it sets it's stall out early on, no endless scenes of boring exposition as we know Alec is a psycho & the film lets him get on with it. I really liked the story & the ideas here, I liked Alec's devious plans & they were satisfying to watch unfold plus they were quite feasible & not too far fetched although I wasn't sure about Alec's motives & simply painting him to be a nasty sort of guy isn't motivation enough for him to become obsessed with Marty to the extent he would literally murder to be with her & then frame her for one of them so she couldn't go to the police or leave him. Anyway, overall I thought Deadbolt was a nice tight little thriller that more than kept me watching & entertained for 90 odd minutes & wasn't to far beyond the realms of possibility, I mean I'm not saying it's realistic or anything but it's more credible than a lot of thrillers out there which helped me relate to what was happening.
Director Jackson obviously wasn't working with a fortune & as a whole Deadbolt looks a bit on the dull side just like the made-for-TV film it so obviously is. There isn't any explicit violence or gore apart from a couple of slit wrists & a brief scene of someone getting shot in the head but there is a fairly tame sex scene.
Technically Deadbolt is alright, just about the best thing I can say about it is that's it competent. The acting was fine in my opinion, Baldwin makes for a good villain & Bateman makes for a likable & good looking leading lady.
Deadbolt was a nice surprise, it's not life changing stuff that's for sure but on a basic entertainment level I liked it. When all said & done I thought it was good solid film, it's as simple & straight forward as that, I think you could do a lot worse than this & I'd say give it a go if you can find a copy somewhere cheap or catch it on TV for free.
3 out of 5 found this helpful