Backtrack (1990)

Directed by Dennis Hopper. Starring Jodie Foster, Dennis Hopper, Joe Pesci, Dean Stockwell, John Turturro, Fred Ward, Tony Sirico, Helena Kallianiotes, Vincent Price. [R]

Experimental artist Foster witnesses a mob hit, making her the target of a professional hitman (Hopper, sporting a weird accent), who falls in love with her at first sight. Signs of haywire post-production activity is apparent in this lousy thriller—things happen without making sense, the criteria of character conduct are dictated by an illogical screenplay, and the acting from a cast full of recognizable faces (including Charlie Sheen and Bob Dylan in cameos) is consistently unnatural. Bizarre mise-en-scène choices include lots of LED ticker displays (the medium of Foster’s “art”) that are like subliminal messages made explicit. A heavily-edited version was initially released under the title of Catchfire, direction credited to the pseudonym Allen Smithee; a later cut restored about twenty minutes of footage and Hopper’s credit behind the camera, but it’s still quite badly-directed (did no one notice the blatantly-breathing corpse??). Pesci went unbilled; Catherine Keener also shows up for a bit part in one of her earliest film roles.

23/100