#118: Backtrace

Release Date: December 14th, 2018

Format: Streaming (Tubi)

Written by: Mike Maples

Directed by: Brian A. Miller

1 Star

Nothing can make 87 minutes feel longer than a bad movie. Backtrace is Exhibit A. 

With a budget of $6 million and a shooting schedule of 12 days, I imagine the production happens something like this: Can some small-time movie producer sell Sylvester Stallone on being in his crummy movie for $3 million? Then once you get Stallone to sign on, you hit up a dozen different rinky dink production companies to pool enough money to get a cast and crew together and shoot a cliche action movie in tax-friendly, rural Georgia.

And cliche is an understatement. Backtrace opens with a gun battle in which the main character suffers a head injury and develops amnesia, then we get a prison break and a corrupt FBI agent and more gun battles and a hidden bag of cash. It’s cliche, bad movie bingo.

And it looks like shit too. Drab, grey digital photography in featureless Georgia forests and abandoned warehouses, with lots of close ups of tough guys holding guns.

I would hope this flick only got made because someone had to launder some drug money or something.