A young robber (Eric Bana) and his sister (Olivia Wilde), fleeing from a successful heist, crash their car in wintry northern Michigan and kill a policeman. The two separate in an effort to reach Canada. From there on in, things get steadily worse for them.
This is the first US film of Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky, who made the excellent The Counterfeiters in Europe and is clearly attempting a latterday film noir. He has the sister picked up by an ex-jailbird boxer (Charlie Hunnam) and the two falling for each other. But her brother is on a killing spree and hasn’t finished with them yet. The best of Deadfall is the snowbound location; the worst is the melodrama of its screenplay. You can’t help thinking how good the Coen brothers’ Fargo was in comparison.
