(1991)
2
Mike DiBella
Dennis Hopper's off-kilter take on art, life, love, and all points in between is a meandering mess. Jodie Foster plays a conceptual artist who uses flashing signs as her medium. After witnessing a mob hit, Foster must go into hiding and the man hired to snuff her out, played by Hopper, obsessively falls in love with her. Instead of rubbing her out, Hopper stalks Foster (art imitating life) and allows her to live under the condition that her life "belongs to him." Foster's forced exile forces her to face the typically artistic dilemmas of isolation, self-loathing and self-indulgence. This excessive artiness sometimes borders on pretentiousness but the obtuse style and tone Hopper employs throughout may actually be a send-up of art and artists themselves, case in point being Hopper's God-awful mock saxophone playing. The bizarre chemistry between Hopper and an uncharacteristically sultry Foster is absurd but incredibly entertaining. While the film has cult appeal and dark humor it is simply too slipshod and silly. Furthermore, it never makes up its mind if it wants to be ridiculous or serious and in the end plays like a farcical David Lynch rip-off. A quirky, widely disregarded film that is both mildly entertaining and bafflingly stupid, Backtrack features a star-studded cast including Vincent Price, Joe Pesci, and John Turturro, with cameos from Charlie Sheen, a young Catherine Keener, and yes, Bob Dylan as a chainsaw-wielding conceptual artist.
Backtrack on AllMovie
Backtrack (1991)
