Toby Sawyer is supposed to watch over a dead body. Instead, the body vanishes, and the young sheriff’s deputy becomes the target of the very criminals who took it. That’s the setup for The Deputy, and it’s a premise worth building a tight thriller around. Matt Sukkar directs from a script by Carlo Bernard, and the film spends its 100-minute runtime chasing that premise without quite catching it.
Trailer, via Well Go USA Entertainment.
Toby Sawyer and Duke Nicholson
Duke Nicholson plays Toby Sawyer, a man who seems to be sleepwalking through his own life. He’s disconnected, apathetic, and frustrated, and Nicholson plays those qualities with a mix of exhaustion and quiet dread. The film wants Toby to feel like an early Coen brothers protagonist — rudderless, aimless, unlucky — but the writing never quite gives him enough to work with.
Chief Krueger and the Supporting Cast
William H. Macy plays Chief Krueger, and he brings the same kind of weary competence to the role that suits him so well. Tiffany Haddish plays Amanda Jackson, and she gets the film’s best scene, a moment where her presence cuts through the fog of Toby’s confusion. Stephen Dorff plays Billy Banks, the man behind the disappearance, and he’s a genuine threat rather than a cartoon villain. Devon Ross and Billie Lourd round out the cast as Molly and Doris, giving Toby support he barely deserves.
The Central Character Problem
The problem isn’t the cast. It’s the central character himself. Toby Sawyer is inconsistently written, and the film as a whole suffers for it. The film is trying to build a slow-burn neo-noir, but Toby’s apathy and disconnection become a trap rather than a hook. A rudderless central character is fine when the story has momentum. Here, the story doesn’t have enough momentum to carry him.
The Mystery and Its Weaknesses
The mystery itself is simple enough to solve early, and the film doesn’t complicate it enough to make up for that simplicity. There’s a sense of a bigger game being played, but the pieces aren’t arranged with enough care to make the reveal land. The film trusts the audience to follow Toby’s confusion, but it doesn’t trust the audience to care enough to stay with him through it.
The Slow Pace and Its Cost
The film is slow, and it knows it. The tagline warns viewers to “Trust no body,” but the film trusts Toby far more than it should. The result is a movie that feels like it’s moving at half-speed while the clock keeps ticking.
What Works in the Film
The film’s strengths are real. Macy’s Krueger anchors the picture with a grounded authority that keeps Toby’s drift from becoming unbearable. Haddish’s Amanda Jackson is a shot of energy whenever she appears. Dorff’s Billy Banks is genuinely threatening, and the film’s best scenes involve Amanda Jackson. The supporting cast does the heavy lifting, and Nicholson is left holding a script that doesn’t give him much to hold onto.
The Verdict
The Deputy is a flawed, slow-moving neo-noir with a weak central character and a solvable mystery. The ensemble cast is strong, and the premise is better than the execution. Nicholson does a good job of playing Toby’s disconnectedness, and Macy, Haddish, Dorff, Ross and Lourd all bring their own weight to the picture. But the film never quite pulls together, and the slow pace drags it down.
It’s a film worth seeing for the cast, but not one worth rushing to see.
Key facts
– Director: Matt Sukkar
– Writer: Carlo Bernard
– Release date: September 25, 2026
– Runtime: 100 minutes
– Rating: R
– Audience score: 6.9/10 from 5 TMDB votes
Verdict: Early.
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