DEADLOCK is a jokey, one-note adventure set in a future whose visual complexion is a bit too similar to our present. Recommended for prison pic groupies who get off on cruel and inhuman punishment but don't want the inconvenience of actually being incarcerated.
Not only is heist mastermind Frank Warren (Rutger Hauer) prevented from living happily ever after with the diamonds he steals, but he's also pumped full of lead by his fiancee Noelle (Joan Chen) and best pal Sam (James Remar). Surviving the injury to his pride and major arteries, Frank does a
stretch at a newfangled pokey, Camp Holliday. All the inmates in the prison wear "deadlocks"--electronic necklaces that will blow them up if they stray too far from their secretly connected partner. Besides being brutalized by prison trustee Emerald (Basil Wallace), Frank becomes the whipping boy
of Warden Holliday (Stephen Tobolowsky), who tries to torture Frank until he reveals the site of his buried gems, never recovered by the cops. Fellow con Tracy Riggs (Mimi Rogers), who claims to have inside information that she is Frank's deadlock partner, pesters him to flee. Frank wins a
prison-yard brawl by tearing off Emerald's neckpiece and blowing him up, and then runs for his life with Tracy. What Frank doesn't realize is that Noelle and Sam are Warden Holliday's crime associates and that Tracy is their stooge.
Life on the lam proves risky. After reuniting with his friend Jasper (Grand L. Bush), who brings tools suitable for deadlock removal, Frank and Tracy head for Frank's stash--millions of dollars from the gems fenced by Jasper. Cornered there by Sam and Noelle, who reveal Tracy's betrayal, Frank and
Tracy make a run for it with the money--but Noelle is greedy enough to shoot through Sam in order to hit Frank. Wounded, Frank entrusts the removal of the deadlocks to Tracy. When Noelle and Holliday catch up, Frank tricks them by handing over the loot along with the explosive part of the
deadlocks. When Noelle pushes the activator that should eliminate Frank and Tracy, she blows up Warden Holliday's helicopter and herself instead.
DEADLOCK could have been a lot of fun, but its twisting story line keeps going and going, as if the film were on automatic pilot and the director had bailed out. This prison gambol benefits from a top-flight cast who plays crime-and-go-seek with panache, especially Tobolowsky as a visionary Warden
who wants to franchise his penal plan like a fast food restaurant chain. If only the hip audience weren't able to guess Frank's countermoves in this series of backstabbing intrigues so quickly. Written with some tart one-liners and directed with a certain sadistic relish, DEADLOCK chugs along
gamely on buses, tourmobiles, elevators, etc., but it always gets where it's going predictably. Viewers may enjoy it for its playful spirit of robbery for profit and homicide for pleasure. (Graphic violence, extreme profanity, adult situations.) leave a comment
