deadline

Deadline
$9.98
DEADLINE is a made-for-television movie, filmed in Marrakech, Morocco, for BBC in 1988. This movie (which partly anticipates events shown in SYRIANA, a far better film) had the potential to be quite good, but it suffers from major quality-control problems. The fault, dear Viewers, lies not in its stars (John Hurt and Imogen Stubbs) but in its script, its editing, and its production values.

Supposedly set in the Middle East, its story-arc appears to be the tragedy of aging ace reporter Granville Jones (Hurt), who loses his young archaeologist lover (Stubbs), either through bad luck or through the villainous actions of the powerful enemies he makes when he reports that the pro-west Arab leader of an oil-rich country was forced to abdicate by his anti-west, fundamentalist son. I say "appears," because the vast number of flashbacks that Hurt's character experiences make the overall chronology of the plot unclear. Furthermore, the nature of the soundtrack is such that large portions of the dialogue cannot be made out. (Captioning would have been a great help, but there are no extra features of any sort on this DVD.) It may well be, however, that the scriptwriter and/or the editor and/or the sound engineer deliberately decided to be "artsy" and leave us hanging in several key respects.

As far as production values are concerned, this DVD is below par in many ways. For one thing, it appears that somebody videotaped the movie while it was running on his or her "telly," and it even appears that the transfer to DVD format was made with a third or fourth generation copy of that videotape. The picture is consistently washed out in regard to colors and often seems blurry as far as focus is concerned. Frequently during this movie a hand-held camera is used inside a vehicle, and either there is a smudge on its lens or there is bad sunlight glare on the vehicle's windshield--or a combination of both--which is more than a bit distracting. There are two problems with the sound: some voices (such as Hurt's) are clear most of the time, while those of many other people are often indistinct; the musical soundtrack that is "mixed" with the dialogue is too loud most of the time. By the way, the music does not really mesh well with the emotional impact or mood of the events on screen. (It often sounds as if part of some uncredited string quintet by Boccherini is being played, which is pleasant enough in its own right the first few times it is heard, but this one theme is vastly overused during the whole film.)

Overall, this movie creates quite a bit of tension and much sympathy for Hurt's character, in respect to both his professional activities and his love affair, and Hurt does a fine job of acting. Stubb's character is clearly a subordinate component of the plot, but she has her shining moments as well--pretty, vivacious, athletic (especially in the scene where she walks flirtatiously on her hands), and strong-willed in a good way. Most of the other actors do fine jobs, too. (Be advised that this film does have about three seconds of nudity during a love scene, so some of you may not want to watch it with your grandmothers in the room.)

Deadline
$29.95
This is a gut-wrenching and thought provoking movie about the criminal justice system in the United States. The directors do an excellent job of demonstrating how emotional factors play into the prosecution of suspected murderers and how the more heinous the crime, the more likely an unjust verdict will be reached. Since it is the poor, the uneducated and the minorities who are the least protected in our society, they, of course, bear the brunt of the failure of our criminal justice system to protect the innocent. Deadline makes a very good point that as long as we focus on the outrage of the crime and ignore how capital murder cases are being prosecuted, we will be doomed to an unjust system.

I have just read two excellent compilations describing each and every case for those recently executed entitled, Death Penalty USA: 2003 - 2004 and Death Penalty USA: 2005 - 2006 by Michelangelo Delfino and Mary E. Day who also do an excellent job and I highly recommend these books if you really want to really know how the ultimate penalty is being imposed in the U.S.

Deadline (Ollie Chandler, Book 1)
$14.99
I received this book as a gift, and was looking forward to reading it as I thought it would help me through the difficult time I was having with my Faith. I was very, very disappointed with this book. The instances that did give me hope were because I got to follow the main character transition from a more neutral, pessimistic, apathetic, confused state to a state of understanding and happiness. However, the main character only transitions because of a very biased, very blatant fight on the views of abortion. It was very difficult to read about the person's personal journey, or concentrate on the murder mystery aspect of the plot because nearly EVERYTHING in the novel centered around abortion and the pro-life opinion of it (if it wasn't about abortion, it was about how wrong public schools are). At one point in the novel Randy Alcorn mentions what a "straw man" is and one of the characters accuses the main character of doing such in many of his editorials. Well, Randy Alcorn seems to have set up straw men all over the place when it comes to the certain issues in this book. Like Elizabeth Lynn reviewed, Alcorn seems to place Christian conservatives on a pedestal and casts liberals (even Christian liberals) to the dogs. It's such a blatant, one-sided fight he's making and he does indeed, paint things WAY too black and white. This kind of opinionated story was not what I was in the mood for and I found myself sighing and rolling my eyes and just getting exhausted as I read more and more. I felt let down by the time I finished. It read somewhat cliche and you can definitely notice the parts that Alcorn had to research to write about, as they are blatantly stuck in chunks here and there. It appears as though Randy Alcorn had an opinion about abortion that he needed and wanted to share, and just stuck a half-asked, cliche murder mystery around it. I was looking to find some hope while in an otherwise confused and lost state, and so Alcorn smacking me in the face (figuratively speaking) with the highly-controversial issue of abortion did not keep me interested or happy with his book. Instead of getting a light-hearted, thought-provoking, inspiring and uplifting book by a Christian author, I got an evangelical opinion wrapped in a dull plot line.

I don't recommend this to people who are like me--just lost and looking for a way. I do recommend it to people who already have strong convictions or beliefs and these thus agree with those.

Deadline
$11.70
This is the first Kernick book I've read but it won't be the last. I couldn't put it down. Is it a literary masterpiece? Of course not. Is it a fantastic crime thriller that hooks you in from the start and doesn't let go until the end? Yes. 100% recommended to all who love a good, easy, entertaining and exciting novel. Fantastic stuff!