VOD Review: Backtrack (2016)

"Remember when Adrien Brody won an Oscar? Neither do we."

With as many solid genre efforts that come out of Australia, we expected a little more out of Backtrack. A great premise, a great setting, and a great cast should have made this one a Supernatural Thriller that had us on the edge of our seats throughout... but it wasn't, and we weren't.

It all felt like a safe, paint-by-numbers Thriller, which made it fairly predictable. It also held our attention until the end, so maybe we just missed something?

Or maybe, and far more probably, it was the movie that was missing something. Like intensity, or terror.

Yeah, that's it.

Almost a year after the death of his daughter, Psychologist Peter Bowers is losing his mind. Not only does he blame himself for her death, but he's seeing ghostly visages, and his patients are all acting oddly around him. After he discovers something (which we're not going to tell you about here, because spoilers suck), he begins a journey that leads him back to his boyhood home... where some horrible, long-buried secrets await him! Sounds intense, right?

SO INTENSE.

You see, he's seeing ghosts because of those very secrets, which the spirits apparently want him to remember, presumably so that they can get some rest. Or so that he can move on from his grief, or something. I don't know. A bunch of ghosts show up and act all ghostly and mysterious. There's really nothing more to it than that.

Exactly what you'd expect to happen from here on out ensues. 

WHY CANT GHOSTS JUST SAY WHAT THEY WANT FROM THE LIVING, INSTEAD OF BEING ALL AMBIGUOUS ABOUT IT?

Backtrack was a pretty decent Mystery that had some Thriller-like elements going for it, but it didn't really offer us much in the way of scares (unless you count a bunch of shameless jump-scares, which we don't.) At least it made us care to find out what was going on with Peter: was he losing his mind, or was he really being haunted by ghostly visitors because of something he had been repressing since childhood?

As intriguing as we did find the story though, Backtrack is a movie that didn't really play with our emotions all that much, mainly because it was hard to build much sympathy for Peter, and I'm honestly not sure why either. Adrien Brody did a fine job with the character, and the story had plenty of emotional beats throughout, but they just didn't grab ahold of us like they could have.

It also wasn't very scary. Intriguing and intense at times, but not scary at all.

THERE SHE GOES AGAIN, ON HER OWN...

Adrien Brody was as good in this one as he usually is in anything. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that's a good thing or not. He did manage to pull off a decent Australian though. Sam Neill, who we usually love, just kinda showed up and read his lines in a few scenes, and then was gone. He was sadly underutilized.

The bright spot in the cast was Robin McLeavy. She's a great actress, and it's a shame that she didn't show up till the latter half of the movie, because she could have added a lot to its early going.  

WHY ARE WE EVEN IN THIS MOVIE, MATE?

Adrien Brody's best work is probably behind him. That's alright though, because he's still pretty good.

YEAH, IT WAS A ROUGH ONE FOR US TOO.

Backtrack is one of those movies that frustrated us because while it's a decent enough Thriller, it could have been so much better. We never felt like there was any danger for its lead character, even when he was in danger, and if anything, this movie should have made worry for the guy, whether he was actually being haunted or not.

You could do worse than to rent this one, but you could also do much better.

C

Backtrack is available now exclusively on DirecTV, and will hit other VOD platforms on 2/26.

Robin McLeavy? More like Robin McLovely, am I right?