Backtrack (1989)
by Alan Smithee
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Product details
Actor: Carl David Burks, Clifford Bartholomew, John Apicella, Julie Adams, Kevin BourlandDirector: Alan Smithee
Primary Contributor: Jodie Foster
Edition: VHS Tape
Format: Color, EP, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Running Time: 102 minutes
Release Date: 1995-01-25
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Live / Artisan
Studio: Live / Artisan
VHS Movie Reviews of Backtrack (1989)
Movie Review: More than it seems: violent, disturbing... and oddly poetic
Summary: 4 Stars
Do not be put-off by the Editorial Review, which misses the point. Close attention (even to the edited version) reveals this story is about kindred spirits: the artist inside a contract killer (Hopper) recognizing the potential killer inside a conceptual artist (Foster).
Having reached the pinnacle of his profession, he is at a dead end; having witnessed a mob killing, she is "dead meat." At the risk of his, he saves her life in exchange for her absolute obedience. Now they must out-fight, out-run and out-wit both the mob and the Feds to survive. A pre-Tarentino attempt to explore a killer's humanity.
I'm waiting for a good version Director's Cut to come out on DVD.
Movie Review: This DVD is NOT Dennis Hopper's Director's Cut!!! Avoid this DVD and keep your old VHS of the Directors Cut!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
I usually love DVD's of old films,but this time it's not the case!!! The DVD is a butchered shorter version with a new score,YUCK!!! If you have the old director's cut on VHS tape,I advise you keep it until a Director's Cut version on DVD come out!!! I kept mine thank God!!! Great film,Bad DVD,I'm glad I did not buy it!!! THIS IS NOT DENNIS HOPPERS DIRECTOR'S CUT!!! Nuff said!!!Movie Review: WHAT ?!?! Average three star!?!??!
Summary: 1 Stars
This movie might be the equivalant of cinemagraphic vomit. I can't believe that the average rating is three stars. The soundtrack consisted of horrible whiney 80's saxaphone music that made my ears bleed. I was 13 when I saw it and 15 years later, the horrible images are still emblazened in my mind as the worst 2 hours I have deliberately spent in my life. Please turn back now before you waste your time and money. Movie Review: Butchered movie
Summary: 1 Stars
Don't buy this DVD. Buy the VHS director's cut. The movie has been wrecked by haphazard edits. The DVD doesn't even make sense. This is not a bad film. Buy the VHS, but run as far as you can from this DVD. It's a rip-off.Movie Review: Good cast but horrible script -- a real waste of talent!
Summary: 1 Stars
I expected to like this quirky 1990s film. It's directed by Dennis Hopper and has a list of great actors and an intriguing theme. A woman artist witnesses a Mafia murder and goes to the police. However, she recognizes one of the cops as one of the hit men and goes on the run. The bad guys want her dead and even hire their own hit man who becomes obsessed with her. That's the kind of story I like, especially as Jodie Forster is cast as the woman and Dennis Hopper is cast as the hit man. Also in the cast are Dean Stockwell as the crocked cop, Bobby Dillon as a fellow artist, John Tuturro and Tony Sirico (Paulie on of The Sopranos fame) as mobsters, and there's even a cameo by Vincent Price.
My expectations for this film didn't pay off, however. From the very beginning, when Jodie Foster's car breaks down and she witnesses the mob hit, I found myself annoyed. There she was, leaving her car, wearing high heels and a skimpy dress and not even carrying a purse. Later, it was just too easy for her to change her identity. She went to a cemetery, found a gravestone of a woman who would have been her age, and applied for a birth certificate and a social security card. Also, the technology of the time (1990) was certainly not sophisticated enough for Dennis Hopper to go to a computer screen and track her identity change.
All the characters came across as exaggerated comic strip caracatures and I found myself laughing out loud when they tried to be serious. Perhaps this was the director's intention, but the film just couldn't hold my attention. I wanted to turn it off after ten minutes but hoped it would get better. Somehow I watched for another forty minutes before ejecting the DVD disk with disgust at such a waste of talent.
If you've never heard of this film I can well understand why. It was simply a dud. I have only one thing to say about this film. Forget about it!
Summary of Backtrack (1989)
Dennis Hopper directed, as well as acted in, this moody mess from 1989, which was barely seen for a couple of years until getting a boost from the rising fame of its star, Jodie Foster. Looking startlingly young, Foster plays a conceptual artist who witnesses a mob hit, thus becoming a target herself for an assassin (Hopper). But instead of killing her, Hopper's killer falls in love, demonstrating his passion by stalking her at a distance, "owning" her every move and keeping her in exile from ordinary life. The resulting isolation squeezes Foster's creative spirit, forcing her to confront doubt and self-loathing--everything that artists suffer as the price for self-expression. Deeply self-conscious, with a calculatingly meditative tone that becomes inseparable from Hopper's tenacious voyeurism (the film's most obvious commercial hook--Foster's nude scene--is almost prayerful in its pathology), Backtrack wants to be a confessional fable about the artistic process. Instead, it's a muted yet rambling confession about the sinner inside a filmmaker, which would be great if Backtrack were, say, Rear Window. But it surely isn't. --Tom KeoghAction & Adventure Video
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