Deadbolt Reviews

To call it "Single White Male" would be an insult to SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, but DEADBOLT is virtually a sex-reversed carbon copy of that better-known hit, this time starring Justine Bateman as a remarkably dense med student who takes in a male roommate and gets, as they say, more than she bargains for. Concerned about being alone and unprotected in the big city after breaking up with her lawyer husband (Chris Mulkey), med school student Bateman advertises for a male roommate (presumably, since no females apply) after her spacious, stylish apartment is broken into. Her first choice is pre-empted from moving in after his skull is crushed with a car jack handle, leaving the field clear for easygoing, attractive Adam Baldwin, whose first hints of weirdness are low-key enough. Like Michael Keaton in PACIFIC HEIGHTS, Baldwin appears to have no job, yet he pays for everything with big wads of cash. But he is a skilled carpenter and begins doing minor remodeling and repair jobs around the apartment, which endears him to Bateman immediately. Much fussier Mulkey, who's trying to win Bateman back, finds that Baldwin has left no paper trail whatsoever during his life. In the face of such fact-checking, Baldwin is of course forced to murder Mulkey by getting him drunk and inducing him to commit suicide. Baldwin goes on to get Bateman fired from her research job, steals her loan application from the mail so she runs short of money and later kills her suspicious best friend, apparently the sole person at Bateman's med school who's at all curious about why she's stopped showing up for class. While Bateman is away in the country for a few days to recover from Mulkey's "suicide," Baldwin radically redecorates the apartment, adding bars and soundproofing to Bateman's bedroom in which he imprisons her upon her return. Winning Baldwin's trust enough to let her out for a candlelight dinner, Bateman spikes his dessert with some botulism culture from her research lab she had apparently been stowing at home for just the right occasion. Escaping and finding shelter at the apartment of a friend (Michele Scarabelli), Bateman awaits the inevitable arrival of Baldwin and, after some minor skirmishing (the man is addled by botulism, after all), manages to dump him through a skylight to his death. Though mounted with conviction by director Doug Jackson and acted with more skill than it deserves, DEADBOLT is one suspense thriller most likely to cause its chills from the ferocious winds blowing through the huge holes in its scenario. Forget wondering why cagey city girl Bateman would suddenly turn over a set of her keys to a guy with no discernible personal history. Forget trying to figure out why Bateman, a responsible student and would-be research scientist, brings a bottle of botulism home from the lab and stores it in a kitchen cabinet within easy reach of a young child who often visits her. And definitely forget questioning why the police don't even begin to get suspicious until well after practically everybody Bateman has known since she was an infant dies violently in the space of a week while she herself seems to disappear from the face of the earth. Why is this movie even called DEADBOLT? Granted, it's a nifty title, but deadbolts do not figure prominently either in the plot or the climax. A more logical title would have been "Botulism," but that undoubtedly would have been too perfect a preemptive review as well as a description of the plot. In fact, DEADBOLT isn't even bad enough to be sickening. It's just more of the same. (Violence, adult situations.)