Atraída Pelo Perigo

For about a decade, I swear I saw a number of films with the same trait: trying to make a hardened cold-blooded hit man into a sympathetic softie at heart. Oh, filmmakers just love to make evil look good.

Who better to play a twisted wacko than Dennis Hopper? Here, Hopper has the hots for Jodie Foster. To quickly summarize, the film is pretty interesting but with a bad message, as just mentioned. What's really interesting is the cast. Check this out: Hopper, Foster, Joe Pecsi, Fred Ward, Dean Stockwell, Vincent Price, John Turturro and Charlie Sheen. Obviously, this cast is what primarily makes the film fun for a viewing or two. The more you see it, and analyze it, the dumber it gets so don't see this more than twice....maybe once is more than enough. The dialog is pretty dumb in spots.

This is also unique because they can't seem to figure out how long this film runs. When I first saw it on VHS, the box said it was 102 minutes but it was really between 112-115 minutes. When the DVD came out, it also said "102" but only ran 99 minutes. They must have edited out quite a bit of footage from the tape! It was probably a smart move as the second half of the movie dragged too much. However, I've heard of a case like this with tapes and DVDs.

Dennis Hopper's go-for-broke-on-a-slim-budget black comedy about a hit-man falling for his target, a strange but alluring young woman who makes pop art out of neon signs. I enjoyed bits of "Backtrack" (see that, not the butchered European print entitled "Catchfire") such as the gorgeous theater in New Mexico where Jodie Foster hides out or the funny scene where she's pacing around in the bathroom, trying to decide how far she should go with her pervy kidnapper. Unfortunately, the knockabout editing leaves the film feeling somewhat disjointed and the actors are occasionally encouraged to just wing it, but without funny results. I didn't mind the ending--I was hoping for an upbeat one--but these characters don't turn out to be particularly smart people. They're dizzy, lustful little cyphers, and they might've been more engaging if they'd been written with brains.

I really liked everything about this movie...until I watched it spiral out-of-control into a nosedive ending. At some point, the whole tone of the movie changed....probably when the hit-man and his quarry finally meet. The premise is enticing...a man is hired to kill a young woman...but first he must locate her. Difficult, as she is in hiding from both the Mob AND the cops. She abandons her apartment, and the hit man moves in....by going through her personal things, he hopes to discover where she might have fled. More and more, he discovers her personality, her soul....and begins to fall in love with a person he has never met. What a great story! And someday, someone will make a better version of it. This one fell apart too quickly. Perhaps, once meeting her, the hit man should have spared the victim's life....without explanation...just turned and walked away. The End.

Despite the shameless overacting by almost the entire cast, and, despite the "chop shop" editing of the DVD, and, despite the two famous actors (Charlie Sheen, Joe Pesci) who yanked their names from the credits, and, despite the randomness and somewhat unbelievability of the script, and, despite the movie's tendency to vacillate wildly between genuine tension, dark humor, titillating nudity, and cartoonish situations, in spite of all these potential faults, "Backtrack" is very watchable. It has fantastic on location photography, that only adds to the enjoyment of a somewhat flawed, nevertheless intriguing, and ultimately entertaining movie. - MERK

A very strange film with a sterling cast.

Anne Benton (Jodie Foster) was in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessed a murder. Now, the mob and the police are after her as she flees rather than enter witness protection.

On the police side, we get Fred Ward (Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins). On the mob side, we have the boss, Vincent Price; John Turturro (Barton Fink, "Monk"); Tony Sirico ("The Sopranos"); and Joe Pesci (Goodfellas, Raging Bull).

Cameos by Bob Dylan, Charlie Sheen, and Catherine Keener added up to a great cast. Too bad the movie wasn't as good as the people in it.

Dennis Hopper (Hoosiers, Easy Rider), who also produced and directed the movie, played Milo, a hit man hired by the mob to catch the girl. Unfortunately, they didn't figure him to become obsessed with her, and what's more we didn't figure that she would develop Stockholm Syndrome.

This film came in between Foster's two Oscar winning performances in The Accused and Silence of the Lambs. We get a good look at Jodie's Fosters not once, but twice in the most skintastic performance of her career. She is one good looking woman.