Dennis Hopper was a major collector of modern art and it shows in this film,its worth watching for the abstract art influences. The gallery, the art works Jodie is an artist that Hopper falls for and the graphics as you go through reflect the modern and abstract influence. Cannot fault the cast although I agree the performances were stilted as necessary from the mafioso themes a group of friends make a film because it would be fun takes the important underbelly out of it and the sound track is dated film background. "You artists have no sense of reality you gotta get out= pound the pavement".

An artist witnesses a mob killing and calls the police. At the police station she realises that the Mafia has a man in the force.Trailed by the police, who need her testimony, and a Hit-man hired by the Mafia, she goes to Mexico.She eventually she meets the Hit-man, who has become infatuated after studying her art and life to prepare for the kill....I don't know if it was to do with the version I saw, which was just the generic version that is on general release, but I found myself wondering, what is it with all these very good actors starring in something so generically average? Were they all desperate to work with Hopper? or is the three hour version so wonderous, it was too brilliant to show, as no other film could ever be made again.I feel that someone had some secret photos of someone, somewhere.It's basically a chase movie, then a slavery movie, and then finally some sort of strange Bonnie and Clyde-esque caper.But the film really doesn't know what it wants to be. It's too strange to be action, too sleazy to be romance, and just too sinister to be a comedy.It's almost as if Hopper is wanting to channel David Lynch, but doesn't have a clue.Saying that, it's never boring, Foster and Pesci are wonderful, and it's got one of the most abrupt endings ever.Not good, but worth watching.

Alan Smithee (i.e. the late Dennis Hopper) must have been walking with a permanent limp after firing this particular bullet into his foot. The quality of shooting was mediocre at best, the dialogue was poor and heavily clichéd. The acting was like watching a group of people, some of them olympic class swimmers, trying to tread water with a sinking battleship tied to their feet. Joe Pesci and Charlie Sheen are missing from the credits, perhaps because they insisted on it. John Turturro has since, thankfully, shown great skill (Quiz Show) but in this he must have been sleepwalking. Jodie Foster was ever pleasant to look at but even her talent couldn't bring the stillborn dialogue and maimed story to life. Hopper's ludicrous accent was at least funny. Vincent Price sat under a fancy hat and greatcoat in a stretch limo and looked suitably glum.Stockholm syndrome could not account for Anne's (Foster) sudden change of heart toward her captor. Empathy may develop but most people don't feel moved enough by it to start looking for the bedroom. A professional hit-man would never allow him/herself to fall in love with a target, unless they were already thinking of getting out of the game though perhaps that was the point. The final section of the movie, the escape from the mob in a helicopter had me looking at my watch but to be honest I'd been doing that from about ten minutes in. If you find any of it believable there may be a brat of a movielet somewhere within but this version was worthy of going straight to Betamax and thence to the bin.I'm wondering if qaaludes were involved somewhere. For example Easy Rider was not great because of what it was but because of what it represented and how it resonated with counterculture people at the time. Mr. Hopper probably lived a lot from the fat of that. His best role remains as the photojournalist in Apocalypse Now and that was because he wasn't really acting; everybody was stoned.

This movie has it all: it is a thriller, a chase movie, a romance story, a mob tale, a comedy, a road movie... well, in fact it's none of this at all. All the time you are waiting for something interesting to happen, but no, you are still watching the same dull, uninspiring and superficial cliché of a movie with a very bad soundtrack. Even the star cast acting is lacking in credibility. A hit man with his quirks, a girl who's playing hard to get, mob guys acting tough and incapable cops, yawn...I'd recommend not to watch Backtrack. If you want to see a good movie directed by a famous actor, go and see 'The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada' by Tommy Lee Jones. Now, that's what I call worth watching.