BACKFIRE

US, 1988, 90 minutes, Colour.
Karen Allen, Jeff Fahey, Bernie Casey, Dinah Manoff, Dean Paul Martin.
Directed by Gilbert Cates.

Backfire, as the title suggests, is a thriller with a twist. It focuses on a marriage, an ex-Vietnam veteran and his nightmares, the conspiracy of his wife and her boyfriend to kill him. However, he goes into a catatonic state. A stranger turns up, the wife forms a liaison with him and then wants him to kill her husband as she undergoes various torments. The twist at the end is obvious enough with the stranger being the wartime buddy of the husband.

The film is done quite effectively with a good cast. Karen Allen plays against type as being the villainess. Keith Carradine is the stranger, Jeff Fahey as the husband. (Dean Paul Martin made his last appearance in this film, which is dedicated to him.) Direction is by Gilbert Cates, director of a number of interesting telemovies and movies over 20 years.

1.Interesting and enjoyable thriller? Relationships, conspiracy and violence? Twist?

2.Affluent settings, mansions, the town, the other side of the tracks? Special effects for Vietnam, the nightmares? The musical score?

3.The title, the reference to Mara and her plans, and her death?

4.Mara, her marriage to Donnie, the surface respectability, her love for him, at home? His nightmares? Her comforting him? The irony of her relationship with Jake, her denial of it? Leaving to go and stay with friends, returning and finding Donnie catatonic, thinking he was dead? Clearing up all the apparatus? The irony of his living, the explanation of the doctor? The explanation of the will? Her having to look after him? Her resentment of Jill looking after her brother? Suspicious of her? Meeting the stranger, infatuation, inviting him home, their affair, Donnie in the house? Clint and his suspicions, his visit? Her beginning to have dreams, have torments in the house? Her conspiracy with Reed to kill Donnie? the phone call, her return, seeing Reed dead, her attempt to shoot Donnie, the gun backfiring? The irony of Reed getting vengeance on her? Portrait of an evil woman, poverty, ambition for wealth and property, her going to look at her mother in her poverty?

5.Donnie, the Vietnam experience, the nightmares with the eyeless soldiers and the eyes on pikes? The noises? His waking up? The children playing the game and his remembering war, drunken behaviour? His love for Mara, her alienation from him? By himself, the blood in the shower, the noises, his growing desperation, the shot and his becoming catatonic? Sitting in the chair, conscious of everything? His discussions with Jill, the provisions of his will? Mara looking after him, Jill looking after him? His presence, in the house, Mara's outburst against him about Reed? The finale and Reed's telling him what had happened - and the final flickering of his eye?

6.Reed as the stranger, taking up with Mara, the affair, at home, trying on Donnie's clothes, driving with her, the mystery of Jake's disappearance? Her telling him the truth? His seeming nonchalance about noises in the house? His appearing to be dead? The irony of his having orchestrated everything?

7.Jake, the relationship with Mara, the past, the present, their plan, Jake's disappearance? His head appearing on the plate in Mara's room?

8.Jill, the relationship with her brother, their mother and her suicide? Her concern, at the party, at the reading of the will, her wanting to look after Donnie?

9.The doctor, the sheriff, his concern, interrogation of Mara, the digging up of Jake's body?

10.Details of life in the house, with Maxine the maid, the atmosphere of fear, Donnie on edge? The ironies and the twists and the defeat of Mara?