Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

illegal immigrants across the border. These two situations shows that neither deputy were perfect sheriffs.
When Sam Deeds once again meets with Hollis later in a café, he sits across the table from him with new
concerns. When Hollis greets him with small talk, Sam asks “you thought anymore about our murderer?”
(Screenplay). Hollis acted confused and that he could not remember anything new about the case. Sam
told him that he had an idea about what happened to Charley Wade. He explained, “I think somewhere
between Roderick Bledsoe’s club and his house, Wade ran into Buddy Deeds. I think Buddy put a bullet in
him, waited for him to die, threw him in the trunk of the Sheriff’s car and drove him out by the Army post,
I think he buried him under four feet to sand and never looked back” (Screenplay). Sam took the
information that Hollis gave him earlier in the film where Buddy and Charley argued in the Mexican
restaurant and all the information that he gathered from about town and drew together a conclusion about
his father based on history and different perspectives of it. From this, Sam now viewed his father in an even
different light than before, as a killer who had no regard for the law and no regret for what he had done.
Just when Sam thinks he solved the murder, he is enlightened with new information that
caused him to radically change the way he thought about his father again. Near the end of the film,
Sam finds Hollis and Otis Payne sitting in Big O’s club talking to each other. Sam walked in and after little
talk asked Hollis and Otis, “You two saw it didn’t you? You two saw it when Buddy killed him”
(Screenplay). Sam warned the two that he was going to find out one way or another and when Hollis tried
telling him that his father had a fine sense of judgment, Sam impatiently interrupted him with, “Yeah, and
my mother was a saint. For fifteen years the whole damn town knew he had another woman on the side”
(Screenplay). He continued by saying, “Stole ten thousand dollars to set her up in business. But hell,
what’s that? You got a problem? Buddy’ll fix it. Facing some time in jail? Buddy’ll knock half or it off if
you do what he says, when he says. You got some business that’s not exactly legal? Talk to Buddy...”
(Screenplay). In this scene, Sayles’ shows the deeply negative feelings Sam had for his father. Sam harshly
stated that Buddy Deeds was a murderer and started interrogating the two men and asking where they were
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