2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Flick, May 27, 2001
I loved this movie. Nia Peeples and Esai Morales does a great job. It's funny, exciting, and has lots of adventures in it. Esai plays Tony Archer and high master con artist whom is great at B&E. He is wrongfully accussed of murder and is sentence to life in prison. Nia plays Allie, she is wrongfully imprison for a crime her fiance' committeed. Together they escape, but the adventure just begins there.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Poor Imitation, March 21, 2011
This review is from: Deadlock 2 [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Nia Peeples would have a difficult time acting dinner theater, much less on the big screen. Her craft is plastic and entirely unbelievable in just about every role she's ever been in.
By contrast, you can always count on Esai Morales to provide a solid performance, regardless of the project he's undertaken. But even a skilled actor has to have an equally skilled director and solid script to work from - neither of which are present in this wannabe flick.
When you're working a small budget, especially in Sci/Fi, it's the little details that count. Those tiny seemingly unimportant elements that will secure, at the very least, 'cult' status among film fans - instead of finding the bottom of a garbage heap.
Just a few examples:
- Why, if Allie (Peeples) had been in the prison for 6 months, does she still look clean and healthy? If you write in the script that she was put in there a few days earlier than Tony (Morales) - done. Simple. But no. Instead, you have her running around for half a year looking like she just came out of a salon.
Ever see a homeless person? Do they look like they just stepped out of a beauty parlor? Are their clothes nice, fluffy and bright? Ever look at how greasy a person's hair gets when they haven't bathed for a few days, much less months? A simple tweek of the script and that obvious and distracting problem is addressed.
- The former amusement park newly converted into a prison is glaringly small don't you think? I mean, if it's the maximum facility for an *entire* state. If you're going to use an already standing set = close ups. Must use close-ups! Never pan a scene to reveal the blatantly limited scale. You want to create the atmosphere of claustrophobia, of being trapped. And you never film in the daytime for this kind of flick. NEVER EVER. The illusion of *being in prison* is completely broken.
- Additionally, never use the same gimmick twice. Or in the case of this moronic sequel, five different steals from the original. Someone must of paid some good money to make this junk. The least a writer and director can do is apply some ingenuity - simple brain power is free the last time I checked; it costs nothing to apply some creativity.
C'mon. The elevator scene, the truck scene, the new clothes scene - the producers must of felt like the movie cops were going to swoop in arrest everyone for rampant plagiarism. Sitting down and thinking costs nothing guys. Sheesh.
Poor Imitation. Re-watch the original.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A worthy followup sequel!!, November 1, 2005
This review is from: Deadlock 2 [VHS] (VHS Tape)
If anyone enjoyed Deadlock Part One and was wondering how this sequel shapes up, you are in for one treat. It is not a sequel, per se, in that there are all different characters, however, the concept of the first movie is continued, only this time with a different cast of characters, and , no insult intended to Rutger Hauer and Mimi Rogers of the original film, but Esai Morales and Nia Peeples are simply, how to put it? a cuter couple! Really, in every regard! You will take even more of a personal interest in them and in their plight as they seek to both unravel the mystery that got them into their predicament and the expected thrills from being deadlocked to each other with a threat of implosion should they be separated more than a certain distance from each other. Both of these fine concept movies deserve to be on DVD.
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