Let's get one thing out of the way immediately: Lance Henriksen has about 10 minutes of screen time, at the very beginning of the movie. If you're watching because his name is attached, proceed with tempered expectations.
That may arguably be the best approach for watching 'Deadly intent' in general, in fact. It's not that this is altogether bad. It's a solid premise. There are noteworthy and recognizable names and faces in the cast, and most of those cast members infuse a suitably smarmy, duplicitous, and/or threatening personality into their characters. The work of the crew behind the scenes is capable, the feature seems technically sound, and the story is, if nothing else, sufficiently engaging so that in the very least we wonder just where it's going to end up. We even get small measures of cheeky comedy to help break up the simmering air of suspense.
I don't mean to cast aspersions, and maybe it's unfair to make assumptions. But of all the many credits that director Nigel Dick can claim, the vast majority are music videos. Whatever else may be true of music videos, feature films they are not. Here, his guidance of the cast, his orchestration of shots and scenes, and his oversight of the production just feel very nonchalant, and unbothered. Whatever the content, tone, or mood of any given moment - even what should be stimulating violence - the course of events is flat and colorless as it presents, including the climax. There is nothing here that inspires, including performances that seem muted and subdued, and awash in passivity. Lisa Eilbacher, starring as Laura, consistently portrays the unwitting pawn of a protagonist with a quiet, clueless halfheartedness exceeding our suspension of disbelief. For all the other movies I've seen these actors in, I know they possess fine ability, so one can only presume faulty direction for the lackluster depictions in 'Deadly intent.'
It's certainly not just Dick, however. Screenwriter John F. Goff contributes a screenplay with characters that should leap out at us, but instead seem as bland and tasteless as stale cereal. The only character who is completely sympathetic, who we can feasibly care about, effectively spends all but the very last few minutes as a lukewarm set piece. For whatever light humor may crop up in the dialogue, much of it is also tired and poorly considered, to say nothing of how it's delivered. There are promising ideas in the narrative, but even only clocking in at 90 minutes, the plot feels both overfull - and uneventful. The scene writing seems strong enough, delineating the specifics for a sequence, but that alone isn't enough to carry the picture.
I can't say I had high expectations as I began watching, but I hoped to be pleasantly surprised. All the component parts are here for what should be at least a passably entertaining movie. Yet the runtime at once drags throughout its length, and seems to come to an end more quickly than seems possible, all on account of how meaningfully little the narrative advances. And through it all, the viewing experience is distinctly ho-hum, and all but sleep-inducing.
'Deadly intent' could have been a decent film, but a thriller that doesn't really impart any thrills isn't much of anything to be celebrated. There's mild value herein - it's far from the worst picture you could watch. Unless you're an especial fan of someone in the cast, however, there just doesn't seem to be much reason to check it out.
