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''Deadlock'' is a 1970 West German neo-Western film directed by
Roland Klick Roland Klick (born 4 July 1939) is a German film director and screenwriter. Biography Klick was born in Hof, Bavaria and grew up in Nennslingen after the war. Klick studied theater and German in Munich, worked as a cameraman on a film by Rolf ...
. It is perhaps best known for the soundtrack supplied by the German rock band Can. The songs Can wrote for this film appear on their 1970 album, ''
Soundtracks A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured ...
''. Today ''Deadlock'' is considered a
cult classic A cult following is a group of Fan (person), fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some List of art media, medium. The latter is often cal ...
.


Plot

A heat-battered young man, "Kid," wanders a desert terrain (implied to be near the California/Mexico border) with a metal suitcase full of money, a machine gun, and a bullet wound in his arm. Collapsing, he is found by Charles Dump, a former supervisor for a now-desolate mining community nearby, who initially steals his suitcase and leaves him for dead. Upon returning to the scene (possibly to either rescue him or finish killing him), Kid has revived and forces him at gunpoint to drive him to safety. Dump lives in the deserted compound with Corinna, a former brothel operator, and Jessy, her mute daughter, whom Dump is likely the father of. Dump deduces that Kid has robbed the bank of the nearest town, and has chosen to walk the desert rather than use the train to get away to lie low. He refuses to remove the bullet from Kid's arm, hoping the injury and infection will kill him, but upon the proddings of Jessy, he finally takes it out, allowing Kid to heal. Kid warns that his partner, Mr. Sunshine, will be coming to collect the money, but Dump seems unconcerned. Mr. Sunshine does arrive, and Dump initially tries to bluff him, at one point intercepting his gun and trying to shoot him, not noticing it is unloaded. The three men proceed to play mind games with each other, Dump trying to sow doubt between the longtime partners, while Kid tells Mr. Sunshine that when he did try to hop a train to get away from the heist, he had been shot by an unknown party. After Dump tries to steal away in the early morning with their money, but gets interrupted by the men, he later tries to leave town on a freight train, but a security bull beats him off. Walking through the desert, he is intercepted again by the robbers, who chase him in his own truck. Mr. Sunshine fatally runs Dump down. Back at his camp that night, Kid and Mr. Sunshine divide the money, and Kid spends the night with Jessy. The next day, the men leave the compound, and Jessy follows them, hoping to tag along. When Kid tries to give her a gift, he notices Mr. Sunshine cocking a gun, and realizes he's being double-crossed. Kid and Jessy are abandoned, and some feet away, Mr. Sunshine throws out one of their guns, telling Kid he can use it on himself. Driving further away and stopping, he opens the metal case, and sees it is weighted with bricks and a note reading, "Sorry old man," and turns around to go back to the camp. He slaps Kid around, demanding to know where the money is, and then shoots both Jessy and Corinna in spite. Kid is able to turn the tables on his former friend, who has given up hope of getting the money, and shoots the older man dead. Now alone in the middle of nowhere, Kid walks off, the question of whether he has the money at all left unanswered.


Cast

*
Mario Adorf Mario Adorf (; born 8 September 1930) is a German actor, considered to be one of the great veteran character actors of European cinema. Since 1954, he has played both leading and supporting roles in over 200 film and television productions, am ...
as Charles Dump *
Anthony Dawson Anthony Douglas Gillon Dawson (18 October 1916 – 8 January 1992) was a Scottish actor, best known for his supporting roles as villains in films such as Alfred Hitchcock's '' Dial M for Murder'' (1954) and '' Midnight Lace'' (1960), and pla ...
as Sunshine *
Marquard Bohm Marquard Bohm (27 June 1941 – 3 February 2006) was a German actor. He appeared in more than 100 films and television shows between 1965 and 2000. He starred in the 1982 film '' Eine deutsche Revolution'', which was entered into the 32nd Be ...
as Kid * Mascha Elm-Rabben as Jessy * Sigurd Fitzek as Enzo * Betty Segal as Corinna


Sources


External links

* {{Authority control 1970 films West German films German crime drama films German Western (genre) films German rock music films German independent films 1970 crime drama films 1970 independent films 1970 Western (genre) films Films set in 1970 Foreign films set in the United States Contemporary Western films English-language German films 1970s English-language films 1970s German films English-language Western (genre) films English-language independent films English-language crime drama films