Backfire [DVD]

Lightning struck in A Bout De Souffle' / Breathless in 1960 with these two actors and director Jean Luc Goddard and the French New Wave had arrived. This film was an attempt to catch lightning in a bottle again. It has better production quality than Breathless (it had financial backing that Breathless didn't). I would say the story was slightly better but with a lesser ending because they wanted it to end happily ever after with a possibility for a sequel. The problem with French New Wave films is that the stories are too disjointed, almost episodic, and reliant upon the actors to give great performances to make you forget about how the story does not flow.Like I said the production quality is much better, but the performances in this movie are less than the performances in Breathless. The story is slightly more cohesive, but still disjointed. The character written for Seberg was actually more complex in Backfire but both actors used stereotypes whether it was written that way or how they chose to play it made sure this movie would not be considered on the same level as Breathless meaning this movie Backfired into mediocrity.

Remember back in the “good old days” when there were video and record stores everywhere? It was a sad day for me when the last Tower Records store shut down where I live. Anyways, video stores in the early days of DVD frequently kept an aisle for the “bargain basement” titles, usually anywhere from $5.99 to $9.99 depending on how obscure the title was. Most of these titles were distributed by a company called Platinum Disc Corporation; the DVDs were housed in thin, hard, clear plastic cases which some people might say signifies “cheap,” but I wish all video companies used these, since they were sturdier and used less shelf space than the flimsy black cases. Still, “cheap” wasn’t incentive enough for me to purchase junk titles I was unfamiliar with, and I was only interested in the ones that I assumed had a certain unclothed quotient, like “erotic thriller” type films.Backfire has a couple of nice scenes with Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark), but this movie is one of the exceptions to the usual bargain basement fare: this is really one good film that critics either ignored or panned on reflex. On the surface, it seems to be one of those numberless movies about Vietnam vets who have lost their marbles (Jeff Fahey), but it is quite a bit more subtle than that. Fahey’s character has recurring nightmares that get bloodier and more frightening; his wife (Allen) rather too easily can’t “take it” anymore, and she plots with her lover (Dean Paul Martin) to get him out of the way. Unfortunately the plan “backfires” and her husband still lives, except now confined to a wheelchair in a seemingly vegetative state. His will stipulates that the wife has power of attorney as long as he continues to live, and be cared for in his childhood home (a palatial mansion) by her, and if she doesn’t want to do this, then her sister-in-law takes control of his not insubstantial estate. This prevents the wife from running off with her lover, and since he doesn’t want to hang around anymore she attempts to blackmail him; when he soon turns up missing along with some money he wasn’t supposed to keep, the law (Bernie Casey) gets involved. Then Keith Carradine’s stranger shows up in town, and the wife starts to work on him about a solution to her problem, and he seems to oblige, albeit reluctantly. But there is one small complication to her set-up that the wife does not know about: the stranger is in town to look up an old Army buddy who saved his life in Vietnam, and that buddy happens to be the husband she wants to off.The DVD is listed as distributed by Echo Bridge, which started out as Platinum Disc Corporation before it expanded; both the Echo Bridge and Platinum versions (if they are separately labeled) presumably use the same full frame source. The Platinum packaging says it is “digitally remastered,” which really doesn’t mean much, but the video quality—like most of the Platinum releases—is actually not as “cheap” as you might expect, and this DVD is “average” as far as typical studio releases went at the time.

I was always foolled by sexy or flashy covers when I was younger, not so much now, but a good cover still attracts me, and the cover for the video tape of this film did make me want to hire it, and we're talking a long time ago. Twenty years ago in fact!! The cover of the video had a woman's pair of legs and she was holding a gun in her hand and of course, I was tempted to get it out for that alone. But I refused.It took all this time and little did I know it would become so rare, but having finally got it, all I can say is, I am so glad I did. It was an absolutely cracking psychological thriller, with a brilliant twist.The cast itself should have given me hope of a decent package, Karen Allen, Keith Carradine and Jeff Fahey, all three of whom have hardly ever let us down. Their work is usually top notch, even if not all of it is to my taste. But that alone even wasn't enough to tempt me back then. But they were all in great form and a very clever script, eerie tension throughout and some steamy scenes between Keith Carradine and Karen Allen, who sort of played the villain of this film all made it worth it. She was such a bitch!!! And Karen Allen has a lovely body which she shows off a bit in this film, for the first time if I'm not mistaken.There were clever twists and turns throughout and it had that sense of mystery and intrigue that really felt like an old eighties suspense shocker. It took me right back and it was terrific. And the ending was so damn good, I was quite breathtaken.All I can say is well done indeed to Messers Allen, Carradine and Fahey for coming up with such a great piece, which was actually worth twenty years of thinking about seeing it!!!A long time ago I thought about it, and now my curiosity is finally satisfied. Strange though how some of these films become so rare.BRILLIANT BACKFIRE!!!

There appear to be several different versions (or packagers) of this fine little film. Mine is the Platinum Disc one, which is 90 minutes, full-frame, and uncensored. The timing and A.R. are not those given for the original production, but, if anything is missing, I didn't notice (relative to the version that shows on HD cable channels). The image is rather soft in places, like a 480i picture, but not in every scene; most of the movie (and, yes, the fleshy bits) look like a 480p DVD. I think the bit rate got up to 7.5 Mb/s in places, which is excellent detail for a DVD. Go figure. Being a rather intimate mystery story, the reduction to full-frame doesn't really hurt so much. Worth watching.

Ich liebe diesen Film seitdem ich ihn in den 1980ern auf Super-8 hatte. Da gab es ihn als Zweiteiler, also ca. 36 Minuten lang. Leider gibt es nur eine sehr rare deutsche Videokassette. Eine Veröffentlichung auf deutsch wäre wünschenswert.

Mara (Karen allen) is married to vietnam veteran Donny (Jeff fahey) who is plagued by nightmares & visions until one night he is finally driven over the edge.Mara appears to be the loving concerned wife but all is not what it seems when Mara meets a stranger in a bar..Without giving too much of the story away,this is an above average 80s thriller with a great performance from Karen allen & a plot that keeps you guessing