Deadland Review – Riveting, Strong Character Driven Performances

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Category: Haute This Issue

Published on Friday, 21 June 2024 15:44

Written by Janet Walker

Deadland, from Strike Media, presents a contemporary supernatural drama as an immigrant attempting to illegally enter the U.S. is captured, which sets off a series of events leading border agents further into the past as a truth unravels.

The film begins with two border agents, Angel Waters, played by Roberto Urbina, and Ray Hitchcock played by MaCaul Lombardi are looking through binoculars surveilling the desolate southern Texas border. We see through the lenses which show the black and white frames with coordinates. Suddenly, Waters picks up swirling dust and the reflection of the sun on a van. He hands the binoculars to Hitch, who confirms and the two are in pursuit.

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They finally catch up to the van, and we understand, like a terror organization, the cartels use kids to carry their contraband into the U.S. Waters and Hitch secure the load and let the kid off with a warning.

On the way back to the U.S. Customs and Immigration outpost, which is a three-person team, in no man's land, trying to stay one step ahead of the flood of immigrants attempting to gain entry, Waters gets a radio call from the base, a drone has spotted and illegal at the river trying to cross. He radios a surveillance plane who is wings down for the night, so he makes his way to the water and tries to persuade the man not to enter the water.

The man doesn't listen. He enters the water and is swept downstream by the raging current. When Waters finds him, he appears dead, with a bloody gash on the side of his head. He bags the body and places him in the back. Suddenly his wife is on the shortwave radio, explaining there is trouble, and he needs to come home, now.

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At that same moment, the zipper on the body bag slowly opens, and the man, played by Luis Chavez, sits up. Waters gets him to the outpost, and along with Hitch and Agent Veracruz, played by Julieth Restrepo, they get him on a gurney for medical care. Waters handcuffs him to the gurney over the protests of Veracruz.

He arrives at his house to find an old man, Tito, played by Manuel Uriza, and his wife, Hannah, played by Kendal Rae, trying to explain that the man, who is in need of medical attention, says that he is his father. While Waters is trying to sort this out, his phone rings, he ignores it, the shortwave squawks and Veracruz tells him to answer his phone.

Next thing we see is blood, and brain matter splattered against the wall. The stranger who had been handcuffed to the gurney was sitting on the floor dead. This is when things begin to unravel, the usual by the book Waters realizes that the stranger hadn't been processed and no one knows he was ever at the outpost. Hitch, we realize, is more than a bit unhinged. Even though his jacket appeared clean, a charge of excessive force was suppressed pending final decision. And worse, we find it is for discharging his service revolver. He knows strike two and he's out. Veracruz is panicked. She cars for her elderly mother, and Waters wife is pregnant and he grew up without a father and refuses to even think of allowing that for his son.

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So, the three make a pact. In the dead of night, they dig a shallow grave for a lone immigrant that no one will ever miss. Once they make this decision, there is no turning back. It seems over and buried. The next morning, Internal Affairs, led by two old timers, Charlie Hobbs, played by Chris Mulkey, and Felix Navarro, played by Julio Cesar Cedillo, show up at the outpost and suddenly the dead of night shows up in the daylight as these two open a door to the past.

Gripping and riveting, Deadland is a supernatural thriller that through mysticism, dreams, and visions, a story unfolds. It is as if a higher power found a way to reach into the grave to right a horrible wrong and expose a shocking truth.

The story is well written and exposes the tense realities of border control. The ensemble cast delivers authentic and believable performances. The director exposes both the barren desolate land, along the southern border and the tricks it can play on the mind, and does well at mixing the realism with the supernatural.

Engrossing, Deadland opens June 24, 2024, in the UK via Amazon Video, AppleTV, Sky Store and Rakuten. See it.

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Country: U.S.

Language: English, Spanish with English Subtitles.

Runtime: 92 minutes.

Release Date: June 24, 2024 (UK Streaming).

Director: Lance Larson.

Producer: Elizabeth Avellan, Lance Larson, Tara Pirnia, Jas Shelton, Norah Veloz, Chris A. Wilks.

Executive Producer: James R. Adams II, Fred Baker, Beth Bruce, Chuck Larson, Eric Larson, John Shoemaker, Christian Sosa, Christopher Dean White, Sam Williamson, Jon Wroblewski.

Writer: Lance Larson, Jas Shelton.

Cast: Roberto Urbina, Julieth Restrepo, McCaul Lombardi, Chris Mulkey, Luis Chavez, Julio Cesar Cedillo, Kendal Rae, David Maldonado, Jared Kesler Smith, Christopher Dean White, Carol Caho.