Deadfall (2012)

“Deadfall” is a snowy thriller more generic than its title. Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde crack the plot open as Alabama sibling thieves gunning for Canada because all criminals adore good ol’ Canada.

Plans go bad. The couple crashes their ride in wintry Michigan, kill a cop, and split ways, but not before bro eyes sis’s ass. She likes it. Ick. Brother kills a Native American, loses a finger, saves a woman and child from a bad dad, and has a shootout with police. Sister hooks up with an Olympic ex-con (Charlie Hunnam) on the run to his parents (Sissy Spacek and Kris Kristofferson) for Thanksgiving. 

Stick a pack of monks in a room and they’ll guess how this drama -– from Oscar-winning director Stefan Ruzowitzky (“Counterfeiters”) -– will end: Buckets of blood and trite family confessions over turkey. 

Character arcs roam random, but not more than Bana’s accent which starts Forrest Gump goober veers Australian and ends bland American. 

Worst crime: Casting Kate Mara (“127 Hours”) as a deputy marginalized as a useless girl dolt by her sexist peers, then writing her character off as a useless girl dolt. Awful. D

The Thing (2011)

The makers behind “The Thing” insisted from Day One they were not remaking John Carpenter’s classic 1982 horror-in-Antarctica thriller of the same name, but building a prequel story to tell us what happened before a creature attacked an American-led camp headed by Kurt Russell. But this is a remake in every scene and sense, ironic for a film about a mysterious, murderous alien force that perfectly replicates its victims. Joel Edgerton (a pilot) and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (a scientist) lead the cold cast, a camp full of interchangeable Norwegians who stumble upon a space ship and a seemingly dead creature. I didn’t wince or jump once, distracted to madness on how every idea on screen is tired and boxed-in, and how CGI will never equal the gross, hand-built physical effects of 30 years ago. First-time film director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. is anti-John Carpenter, taking us out of the movie’s best spot – a mid-flight helicopter ride where the monster attacks -- just as it begins, and puts us on the ground. In the snow. Terrible. This Thing is bloodless, a Xerox. C-

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Back in early 2010, the Swedish film of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” – original onscreen title “Men Who Hate Women” – was released in the United States. I loved the grisly Euro thriller about a disgraced journalist teaming with an emotionally scarred female hacker to solve a 40-year-old murder. Now the Americanized remake (re-adaptation?) arrives from director David Fincher, still set in Sweden, but with bigger names. Daniel Craig is the journalist, and Rooney Mara (“Social Network”) is Lisbeth, the hacker. This rock-solid take has a dark chilly mood to spare, and presents a more complex Lisbeth, a woman who has cut herself off from the world, calculating and scarily brilliant, but prone to still sadly eat Happy Meals. Mara makes the role her own, a bundle of disjoints and razor edges, silently raging. She rocks. Yes, it is disconcerting to see big-name actors traipse around in Swedish snow so soon after seeing other actors speak their own language in their own land, but Craig is oddly effective (and nerdy) as an everyman in deep turmoil. Scripter Steven Zallian smartly condenses the long post-climax. Still, check out the original, a true gut-puncher. 2011: A-

A Simple Plan (1998)

Between making the wonderfully sick “Evil Dead” films and three mixed-bag “Spider-Man” flicks, Sam Raimi made “A Simple Plan,” a supremely dark morality tale that could be the dead serious cousin to dark comedy “Fargo.” Both are set in a frozen white America where bodies stack higher than snow. Here, two estranged brothers (Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton) and the one’s slovenly friend (Brent Briscoe) stumble upon a downed plane in the snowy woods of Minnesota. Inside the plane are a dead body and a duffel bag with $4 million in cash. The bag is opened, and lines are drawn. Guns, too. The trick of Raimi’s direction and Scott B. Smith’s screenplay (based on his own great book) is painting the loveless Jacob (Thornton, amazing) as the only person of conscious, and high-lighting just how far brothers can stray from one another. The dark thrill of “Plan” lies in watching just what pains people –- family -- will inflict on one another for wealth, while justifying every action. Money trumps blood, every time. A