Switchback

Dir: Jeb Stuart

1997

***

1997's Switchback is no masterpiece, that is for sure but it does have a lot going for it. Written and directed by Jeb Stuart, it was his debut behind the camera but not his first rodeo in terms of script. Stuart wrote Lock Up, Another 48 Hrs., The Fugitive and the original action classic Die Hard. If you have any time for the aforementioned films then the chances are you'll have time for Switchback. It is a case of cliché after cliché and the serial killer is revealed fairly early on in the film in classic Colombo style. It's a shame as it didn't have to and it would have been better not to, but it is what it is. There is very little in terms of character development when it could have really done with some, which is a shame and puzzling when you consider his past scripts. We learn the bare basics of the three main characters but nothing more than we need to. However, while we simply have to take the main character's words for what and who they are, the supporting characters are far more rounded and end up being the most charming element of the story. Dennis Quaid plays his FBI agent without emotion, believing that a black suit and slicked back hair is enough to convince us he is a member of the investigative bureau. Danny Glover is a friendly, trustworthy and is an all-round nice-guy drifter and young Jared Leto is a hitchhiker, with a medical history that is only touched upon (and never goes anywhere) who spends most of the film in silence, because silence = mysterious. We learn nothing of these men and the idea that the serial killer and the FBI agent have a personal connection is laughably ridiculous. It feels like Switchback is the awful third sequel to a movie that was pretty good ten years previously. Luckily, support comes from the great R. Lee Ermey and he is joined by an array of interesting actors who would all go on to great things and some of who had come from great things (as well as some faces that will be happily familiar to fellow cinephiles), including William Fichtner, Ted Levine, Walton Goggins, Maggie Roswell, Julio Oscar Mechoso and Gregory Scott Cummins. R. Lee Ermey's character is pretty much an extension of the nameless 'This isn't even my phone' police chief he played in Se7en but it is good and it reeled me in. There is also something sweet about watching Gunnery Sergeant Hartman and The Silence of the Lambs's Buffalo Bill being pally with one another. It's a very easy watch and not something to take seriously, a lazy Saturday evening film and even a guilty pleasure. It's entertaining, full of holes but still likable. Switchback's greatest trick is that it convinces you that it is a great film when it really isn't, which makes it good. I think. It's got a couple of great stunts in it too, one involving a train and another a car dangling over a cliff edge, and there is nothing not to like about that.