Deadline (2012)

0% of critics liked it
(9 reviews)
55% of users liked it
(111 ratings)

Steve Talley and Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts star in Deadline, the story of the murder of an African American youth in rural Alabama that has gone uninvestigated, unsolved and unpunished for almost twenty years. But that changes when Nashville Times reporter Matt Harper meets an idealistic… More Steve Talley and Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts star in Deadline, the story of the murder of an African American youth in rural Alabama that has gone uninvestigated, unsolved and unpunished for almost twenty years. But that changes when Nashville Times reporter Matt Harper meets an idealistic young blueblood bent on discovering the truth. Harper undertakes the investigation despite the opposition of his publisher, violent threats from mysterious forces, a break-up with his fiancée and his father's cancer diagnosis. Deadline is a story of murder, family, race, and of redemption - for a small Southern town and for Matt Harper. -- (C) Official Site

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Rating, Runtime: PG-13, 1 hr. 35 min.
Directed By: Curt Hahn
Written By: Mark Ethridge
Genres: Mystery & Suspense, Drama

In Theaters: Apr 13, 2012 Limited
Studio: Independent Pictures

Critic Reviews

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
Has all the dramatic punch of a community theater production.
Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
Too lifeless for Lifetime and too inept to do justice to its source material...
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
The plot, in short, is underwhelming. It merely follows the reporters as the screenplay serves them the solution to their case on a silver platter.
John Anderson, Variety
Although helmer Curt Hahn champions the causes of racial justice and crusading journalism, he can't seem to find a tone that's consistent or that befits the gravity of his subject matter.
Ernest Hardy, Village Voice
The fact that real-life deadly racial animus in America is often cartoonish in its manifestation doesn't excuse Deadline's cliché-ridden characterizations of bigotry.
Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
...it's not evil and it's enjoyable in the same way the really terrible movies featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 were enjoyable (or at least it was for me and my jaded sensibilities)... a well-intentioned mess.
David Noh, Film Journal International
A case involving the murder of a black youth gets solved here, but absolutely nothing could help this numbingly awful, undoubtedly well-intentioned but who-cares-it's-so-bad farrago.
Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
By the end of it, you'll be crying uncle--or wish you were watching The Help instead. At least that was a more artful lie.
John Beifuss, Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
The acting is the strong suit of this 'cold case civil rights murder' drama, with songwriter J.D. Souther -- who resembles a more professorial Clint Eastwood -- making a particularly distinct impression.