DrPhilmreview What happened to Miguel Ferrer? He's such a good actor yet constantly gets stuck in bad projects like this. He must be the worst judge of scripts.In this apparently made for cable TV outing Ferrer plays a crook who kidnaps Jack Davis' wife (played by Linda Purl) and holds her for ransom. What he doesn't know is the Davis' aren't getting along. So Jack (Ed Begley Jr.) decides to take the ransom money and take off on a bus instead of paying it to the thieves. But Ferrer and his brother catch up with the bus, machine gun it and run it off the road. Thus begins a chase through the woods with Ferrer pursuing the bus crash survivors (a blind girl, a kid with asthma, the usual disaster movie assortment), led by an ex-con played by Michael O'Keefe (who just looks embarrassed to be in this movie). Incredibly, even though they are lost in the woods for two nights--NOBODY comes looking for the missing bus. Apparently when buses don't show up when and where they are supposed to, nobody ever gets curious or I don't know, send out someone to search for them.Davis' idea of taking the money is also pretty lame. When I read the description on the box, I thought his plan might be to get the ransom money, say he paid it and let the kidnappers kill his wife, claiming they took the money and killed her anyway. But no, Davis and this movie are NOT that clever.

Pepper Anne Despite initially appearing to be a sluggish, cheap thriller with predictable ploys, "Incident at Deception Ridge" turned out to be a pretty good action/thriller movie with a few unseen twists here and there. The story involves a couple of people on a bus to Seattle. Our main character is Jack Bolder (Michael O'Keefe), a guy who is on his first day out of the slammer. Though a convict, we discover that Bolder is actually a good-natured fellow who was wrongly accused of embezzlement. Not only that, he went to jail to protect his sister, who was also the victim of her ex-husband's embezzlement scheme that bought Bolder a few years behind bars. So, just out, Bolder plans to start fresh. So, Jack hops a bus to Seattle with his sister. Meanwhile, Jack Davis (Ed Begley, Jr.), who appears to be a mild-mannered man frantically trying to muster the ransom for his wife, kidnapped by two gun-toting brothers, actually turns out to be a double-crosser. He hops the same bus to Seattle without getting the money to the kidnappers. And boy, that made the two kidnappers and Jack's wife sore. And thanks to his wife, the guys have an idea of where Jack is headed, so they follow that bus.Needless to say, there is some confusions as to which Jack the crazy gun-toting trio (now including Jack Davis's wife) is after. They pull up along the road, shoot up the bus, and a handful of people, including both Jacks, flee from the gunfire. And that's where the fun begins--the game of cat and mouse through a beautiful forrest (Canadian?), hoping to get out of there alive. Meanwhile, there's tension among the kidnappers and Jack's wife. She's like the Yoko of the group, and the more violent of the kidnappers goes off on his own to hunt down the group and get their money while the other one (Miguel Ferrer) and Jack's wife play mind games with each other as they become suspicious of each other's loyalties to the other. One thing they'll soon realize is, they didn't pick the ideal couple. Jack Bolder isn't the sole hero of the group in that Clint Eastwood kind of way, where he comes up with all the good ideas and protects the "weaker" ones of the group. Aside from the idiot, Jack Davis, who is responsible for all the trouble these surviving bus passengers find them in, the group all has something to offer. For example, they travel with a blind woman, who has a good sense of direction and acute sense of hearing, so like the raised nose of a guard dog, she can often indicate to the group when a presence is near them, so at least they can have a head start. Aside from the more vicious kidnapper brother who would just assume kill anyone in his way, Ray Hayes (Ferrer) and Jack Davis's wife don't appear that threatening. Sure they run around with guns flying, but all they want is Jack's money, but they never quite seem to be fixated on doing too much harm to the group, at least no more than necessary to get what they're after. And I suppose that's in part, too, because of the distraction that Hayes and Jack Davis's wife endure when they become suspicious of each other's loyalties. Hayes is never sure is Jack's wife is really on his side, and vice versa. But, she's got a few tricks up her sleave. This made-for-tv movie offers some good action sequences, story, and performances with a relatively unknown cast (except for Ferrer and Begley) in this Run or Die kind of feature, and definitely worth a viewing.

jobeblanc The plot couldn't be simpler but the acting is reasonable to good, and the nature scenery (British Columbia come Oregon) is beautiful. This is an entertaining action movie with some character development and a bit of romance (good and bad) that didn't take a lot of effort to follow. None the less the film keeps your attention because the scenes change so rapidly.There is no gratuitous foul language, but a bit of silly shooting.It is not overly clear or credible why the larger group of burdened pursued, keep managing to outrun their fleeter-footed pursuers. And it is never clear why the pursued didn't try to deceive their advantaged pursuers.5.7 / 10 on my scale

lionel.willoquet Two brother criminals try to ransom the banker Ed Begley Jr. whose wife they have kidnapped. But the meeting is not kept: at the last moment, Begley Jr. conceives a stratagem and flee with the money. As a result, his wife, outraged, decides to help her kidnappers... The intrigue is somewhat lacking, but overall the film is effective, not devoid of a few humorous touches in a superb natural setting.