FILM REVIEW: Lone Star Deception - TriCoast Entertainment

Tricoast Entertainment have been kind enough to allow us access to their current slate of films and the first of which I plumped for was ‘Lone Star Deception’ (Dir: Okolo, D. 2019) a political thriller set in Houston in the eponymous Lone Star state of Texas. The plot revolves around Tim Bayh, a veteran from the war in Afghanistan, who is thrust into the treacherous race to become governor of Texas when the incumbent democrat nominee drops out after a blackmail plot emerges. Bayh’s financiers and would-be puppeteers find that he is not as easily manipulated as they’d hoped when he takes matters into his own hands.

The trailer promises tension and thrills by cutting together all of the shots of guns and blazing buildings, but the moments of action are few and far between in the film’s 1hr 45min running time. Lone Star Deception is directed by Don Okolo and Executive produced by Ed Dezevallos, who are credited as the screenwriting pair, and it is here that we might find what went wrong with this film. Good films are often created through tension between directors and studios, or through creativity pushing against industrial or economic constraints, and it is through this friction that inventiveness emerges. Watching ‘Lone Star Deception’, one gets the feeling that no-one had the authority to challenge Dezevallos and Okolo’s filmmaking so they were left unchecked. What results is a film that struggles to find the competence to meet its own ambition and is hamstrung by a script that is at times utterly baffling.

The film’s protagonist is played by Anthony Ray Parker who at 6ft squared casts an imposing figure. You’ll know Anthony Ray Parker, from 1999’s ‘The Matrix’ (Dir: Wachowski, L & Wachowski, L. 1999) in which he played Dozer and no doubt had to utter some equally bonkers dialogue as he does in this. He is a good looking, deep voiced, man-mountain, but his performance is very troubling; he seems to be trying out ‘Pinteresque’ pauses whilst waiting for his autocue to catch up half-way through his sentences and as he does so, forces his bottom lip upwards to inhale as though he can literally smell how ripe the dialogue is. At one point a character named Cabrese becomes particularly agitated, so Bayh (Parker) has to verbally restrain him by saying “Easy Cabrese!”. Faring better is Eric Roberts who, in the role of Bill Sagle the machiavellian mobster behind Bayh’s campaign, breezes through his scenes with dastardly relish and his charisma seems to mask any dubious lines. Eric Roberts is an old hand at B-Movies and he is very watchable.

Okolo’s direction leaves something to desire, with some shots appearing designed to capture everything in one go and some acting performances poorly guided, but the film has an aesthetic quality which belies its low budget. Credit should also go to Pierce Constanti, whose music is used for almost every minute of the film to inform the audience’s preferred emotional response and in the most part it is carrying the film on its back.

‘Lone Star Deception’ is a film which mishandles its promising premise with a script that is in dire need of a doctor, but there are pleasures to be had by embracing the high-camp and straight to video quality. It is never lacking in hyperbole, incident and rather exaggerated performances, that I cannot deny made for some unintentionally entertaining moments. I will be recommending this to friends, but with an admittedly ironic motivation.

Lone Star Deception is available to Stream on Amazon and is probably best enjoyed with a bourbon. Make mine a double!

Reviewer - Ben Hassouna-Smith
on - 18/8/20