RKS 2024 Film: “Deadly Justice”: Sailing in a Choppy Sea

Holly Powell (Kelly Sullivan) no longer acts a district attorney preferring to establish a new criminal law practice. She has put an assortment of nasty criminals behind bars and accordingly has made enemies by the guilty incarcerated and their aggrieved family members. One such guilty incarcerated is Judge Halstead. Yes a judge convicted of murder (of his ex-wife) who never confessed to the murder but nonetheless was found guilty by jury.

Juicy indeed when Holly appears on a television show “Real Crime” hosted by Dale Jones (Brian Krause). Jones aggressively confronts Holly over the Halstead case infuriating her. After the show Holly is tasered walking from her car to her front door and the mystery begins and the “badness” escalates. A note was left on her slumped body stating, “Your turn to lose someone”.

Multi-millionaire Theo (Corin Nemec) newly arrived to Biloxi to develop some golf course property is attracted to the busy Holly. Is he lurking the background with malicious intent? Then the “incidents” continue and escalate in violence with kidnapping and murder. Who is the perpetrator and what are the motives? The plot is believable but hardly enthralling.

Nemec is absolutely convincing as a debonair Theo but good or evil? Krause as Dale plays the role to a tee being a slightly sleazy journalist. Sullivan as Holly is both hot and cold entirely convincing in her role as a lawyer or acting lawyerly but outside those confines her performance is inconsistent particularly the poorly choregraphed knife scene. Marco St. John as James Powell is more difficult to peg with his stilted performance which borders on the awful more often than not. Being a veteran of the stage, he fails to convince as a screen actor with an overemphasized theatrical delivery. St. John has proven his talent over his long career but being fair here he is victimized by casting.

The writing is somewhat askew suffering from ill timing. Directed by Karyn Klein.

Watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ymWcXQOIg

Released On Demand 16April2024.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 62/100.

Published by Robert K Stephen (CSW)

Robert K Stephen writes about food ,drink, travel, film, and lifestyle issues. He also has published serialized novels "Life at Megacorp", "Virus # 26, "Reggie the Egyptian Rescue Dog" and "The Penniless Pensioner" Robert was the first associate member of the Wine Writers’ Circle of Canada. He also holds a Mindfulness Certification from the University of Leiden and the University of Toronto. Be it Spanish cured meat, dried fruit, BBQ, or recycled bamboo place mats, Robert endeavours to escape the mundane, which is why he has established this publication. His motto is, "Have Story, Will Write."

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