I legitimately thought Sylvester Stallone was the protagonist, if not the supporting character in a duo, of this film. Boy, was I misled. He probably has a total of ten minutes of screen time in this. This film actually stars Matthew Modine as MacDonald, the sole survivor of a bank heist gone wrong. Except we never see the heist. We instead see a group of men drive a truck, only to run into another truck full of men and yell “Where’s the money?!” several times before finally shooting one another.
From this scene alone, I confirmed to myself that Backtrace is a B-movie that’s going to take itself way too seriously.
A Ridiculous Premise and No Attempt to Ground It
The biggest mistake of Backtrace is it takes so many illogical leaps and expects us to just accept them all, making no attempt to help us believe in its plot points. We see MacDonald shot in the head, then we’re told that he lost his memory and has been sent to prison. The way the film cuts from MacDonald learning about his memory loss to him being in prison would make you believe he just got transferred. If he didn’t spell it out to an inmate (Ryan Guzman), we wouldn’t know the film’s timeline has jumped ahead seven years.
Then the film shows him receiving an experimental drug that restores his memories back piece by piece, in the hopes of finding the lost money, as the minor characters deliver throwaway lines that are either too expository or pointless. Too many times throughout the film, we are told what happened instead of being shown. It’s hard to care when Stallone says the city has faced the worst attack it’s ever seen when we saw none of the economic and societal consequences. A film with a ridiculous premise is one thing I can potentially accept, but when it makes little to no attempt to ground it all for the viewer, it becomes nearly impossible to get invested.
Modine Tries but the Script and Aesthetic is Unbearable
For a 59-year old leading actor, Modine is really trying to work with what was given to him, and I admire his effort. He sells a few moments that require blank emotions due to lost memories or painful confrontations of his past. The problem is the script is forcing him to do the same act repeatedly. Worse, every time I was given a chance to like MacDonald, something else happens that is so ridiculous, it steals all my attention away. One scene with a female security guard asking to check a car’s trunk comes to mind, but nothing can rival the scene with the cop asking for an ID. The script is unbearably clumsy.
And just when you thought the writing was the absolute worst, Backtrace brings back every action movie’s mortal enemy: shaky-cam. Every single time MacDonald feels pain from the drug and recalls a memory, the film resorts to shaky-cam, and it’s not even the type where the cameraman physically shakes the camera. Rather, it’s the kind where the editor would just drag and drop the Premiere Pro effect “Earthquake” on top of the footage. Often times, the ENTIRE flashback is shown with the shake effect.
And then it all ends in a large shootout in which guns fire way more bullets than they’re supposed to carry, and people die easily, even though they’re wearing bulletproof vests.
Backtrace: A Waste of Two Really Good Actors and Two Hours of my Time
It is no exaggeration to say that Backtrace was the cinematic equivalent of a headache. It’s too ridiculous and underwritten to be a full-fledged crime thriller and too self-serious to be an enjoyable B-movie. Not only was I not invested in the plot, but I just sat there feeling bad that Modine and Stallone were in this. It’s all just a wasted usage of two actors who deserved a better premise and a much better script. It’s a straight-up serious B-movie operating on a completely different wavelength from its audience.
Did you see Backtrace? What did you think of the film? Share below!
Backtrace was released in limited theaters in the US on December 14, 2018. For all international release dates, see here.
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