Jack's Back
by Rowdy Herrington

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VHS Movie Reviews of Jack's Back

Movie Review: This put Spader on the Map
Summary: 5 Stars

Movie Review: Effective Thriller
Summary: 3 Stars

Movie Review: suuuuuuuuuucked
Summary: 2 Stars

Movie Review: Completely overlooked 80's crime/thriller.
Summary: 5 Stars

Jack's Back is an odd movie and kind of deceiving. You see, no one in their right mind is gonna market a movie this complicated. So what the box tells you is that Jack's Back is about a murderer mimicking the Jack The Ripper slayings of a century ago. Well, that's only half the movie. Really just 1/3. Jack's Back is a murder mystery turned revenge noir turned suspense thriller that manages to avoid drowning itself in murky plot, pointless subplot, or endless dialogue in an attempt to competently tell the story and wrap everything up in the end. From the title and basic premise of the film one may think it's just your basic slasher type/murder mystery exploitation stuff that was being recycled and rehashed endlessly during the period when this movie was released. If so, you're wrong...

Writer/director Rowdy Herrington gives us a strong, well developed script with great characters and memorable situations. His ability to shift from a murder mystery to revenge flick to thriller deserves major acclaim. Props to Herrington for creating such likeable and complex characters in the process. From a directing standpoint, Herrington gives the movie a moody and uneasy atmosphere, blanketing it in thick fog and laying on a soft, soporific score to boot. Love that song "Red Harvest," too.

James Spader delivers a layered and very strong duel performance that engaged me and kept my eyes glued to the screen. Cynthia Gibb gives a strong performance as well. I dug how the script didn't go into familiar romantic territory even though Spader and Gibb have great chemistry together, the story didn't need it.

It was great to watch a movie with such a dense storyline that never forget what it was supposed to do - entertain. I was intrigued and fascinated with the story, performances, and Herrington's ability to construct such a multi-layered plot and still find a way to pull it all together. Jack's Back isn't conventional in the least, it marches to its own drum, has class, and is well written, acted and directed. Check it out!

Movie Review: Twice The Spader...Twice The Suspense!
Summary: 4 Stars

Until "sex, lies and videotape," I had narrow-mindedly ghettoized Spader into a good looking, priggy jerk, identifying him mostly with the kind of roles he usually played in the John Hughes movies...the snotty, arrogant, broomstick-up-the-bum rich kid who got his kicks by crushing the identities of poorer, less popular mortals. His deeply affecting performance in "sex" completely caught me off guard, but once I saw JACK, I began to understand that as an actor, to say that Spader has been underestimated is hardly even describing the situation.

Playing twins with every bit as much skill as Jeremy Irons did in the overlooked DEAD RINGERS, Spader plays "naughty" and "nice" sides of the same coin. The "nice" side is apparently a saintly doctor who treats the rich and well-to-do by day, of course, but after work devotes his time and energies to a free clinic in Echo Park, where he seems to be at constant loggerheads with the clinic's unctious director, and catching the eye of a more-than-slightly-interested volunteer, (FAME'S Cynthia Gibb.)

Good Twin Spader and Gibb become involved in a murder mystery involving dead hookers. Well, not just dead, but butchered, and not just by any sick puppy. THIS sick puppy is a Jack The Ripper fan, (hence the clumsy title), who is into recreating the quintessential serial murderer's ghastly deeds, one hundred years to the day that the first one is committed.

Through tragic circumstances, Gibb is suddenly and shockingly introduced to "Bad" Twin Spader, and the story continues as they try to figure out who the slasher really is, not really thinking about how much danger is involved, trying to catch someone who is already a step and a half ahead of them...

Destined later to direct a movie long considered a sign of the Apocalypse, ROADHOUSE starring Patrick Swayze, Rowdy Herrington brings a better sense of story and style to JACK'S BACK. But with Spader gift-wrapping a performance that this script probably didn't deserve, it's hard NOT to come up with something that is watchable at the very least.

It's just too bad that the company which produced JACK, was going bankrupt at the time, and dumping its product into the direct-to-video bins as fast as Blockbuster workers could shrink-wrap it. (That includes a movie far more disturbing and original from the same producers: Donald Cammell's WHITE OF THE EYE.)

Another good, solid "programmer" you may catch on HBO or Encore, if you can't find the VHS version.

General Video

• Genres > Horror
• Slasher Flicks
• Mystery & Suspense > By Theme > Serial Killers
• Suspense
• Mystery & Suspense - General